Home Information Packs

Lord Rotherwick: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Why the planned home information packs do not inform house buyers if their new home has been built on a contaminated land site.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the home information pack will include a local search that incorporates information about whether the property is subject to regulatory action under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. In relation to contaminated land, including entries on the Part 2A public register, the pack may also include, at the seller's discretion, a search report that relates to potential environmental hazards, including the risk of contamination.

Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Is it not the case that the environmental search is not included in the home information pack because Defra made a submission asking for it not to be included, based on the fact that only 100 of the 100,000 contaminated sites around England and Wales were registered with local authorities, as they are required to be under the Environmental Protection Act 1990? If it was included in the pack, the pack would have unreliable information in it.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I would not say that such information was unreliable. The information that can be obtained by searches done privately is essentially incomplete because it is based on historic land use, the Ordnance Survey, public records and the like. In order to be completely robust and authoritative, it would have to be accompanied by in-depth scientific soil analysis. The home information packs must be entirely reliable, and for that reason it has not been included. It is a major task for local authorities to find out where contaminated land is, and I know that the noble Lord understands that.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, in a report last week the Council of Mortgage Lenders expressed grave concern that there was no implementation plan for the home information packs. Will the Minister tell the House whether those plans exist and, if so, when they will be shared with the industry? If they do not exist, how are the Government to tell whether they are able to meet the deadlines?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the noble Baroness will know that one of the features of the process of developing HIPs has been the close consultation that we have had and will continue to have with the whole industry. As I said when I answered a similar Question in December, we are introducing HIPs in a staged way. Every part of the process—whether the home condition report or the certification process—will be tested with the industry to ensure that it is robust and fit for purpose. We expect to be completely on target for June 2007.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, will the Minister answer the question my noble friend asked: was it at Defra's request that the information was not included? Is it also the case that the provisions of the 1990 Act have not been implemented and, if not, why not?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, as I understand it, the 1990 Act, which required potential land use to be reviewed, was abandoned in 1993. The very reason why we do not include authorised searches as being required is that the nature of the information is incomplete. We have now required local authorities to make a proper assessment. It is true that it is a major task. I believe that 400 have been established so far, not 100. As always, Defra and the ODPM are working extremely closely in this respect.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, if what my noble friend is saying is correct, what is the value of the existing environmental search under current conveyancing arrangements?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, it is extremely helpful to have some idea of whether the potential land use at one point would have included contaminated land. Contaminants are not necessarily a hazard to health. For that reason we are pleased that a private industry has grown up to substantiate that information. What has to be taken into account—again I refer to the 1990 Act—is that, when you do not have full information, there is a high risk of blighting property and sales.

Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the ODPM has ordained that 60 per cent of new build now has to be on brownfield sites. If under the current draft regulations flood risks may be required to be included in HIPs, is it not sensible that environmental reports in HIPs should be required to contain the contaminated land aspect, as, under the 1990 environment Act, the homeowner is liable for remediation costs when the original polluter cannot be found? As noble Lords know, remediation costs can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I take the point about flood risk. As our information and processes develop, we are looking at that in the light of what can be included.

Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I understand that more than 7,000 home inspectors will be needed. Apparently, at the moment only 2,000 are undergoing the 18-month training. Does the Minister accept that the Government will end up with enormous problems when the Act comes into force?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I do not accept that. It is very pleasing that, having made the timetable clear to everyone, we now have 2,500 people, which is up from 1,750 before Christmas. People are coming forward because they recognise that the qualification is well worth having. It is a new qualification, a new profession and a new product. People are coming from many different areas of the profession and indeed have backgrounds that will be very helpful when inspecting homes.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that the Question on the Order Paper has not been answered?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I am disappointed in the noble Lord. I think that I have given an extremely full answer on why we are making a distinction between information that is extremely robust and authoritative, which is required, and information that is incomplete, can be misleading and, if used casually, can introduce a blight into the process. As the noble Lord is a member of the legal profession, I know that he would not want us to take that risk.

Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, does my noble friend find it interesting that Members on the opposition Benches are now coming forward with so many useful suggestions when they were so negative about the Bill when it was going through?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, that occurred when a previous Minister held this post. I do not want to comment other than to say it is possibly very likely.

Arms Trade Treaty

Lord Judd: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What preparations they are making for the drafting of an arms trade treaty; and whether they propose that negotiations should take place at the United Nations General Assembly in October.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, we are committed to building support for the launch of a UN-based process to negotiate an international treaty on the arms trade. During 2005, we secured support from the EU and the Commonwealth. In 2006, we will seek further support with the aim of launching a negotiation at the earliest possible opportunity.

Lord Judd: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that encouraging reply and, indeed, commend the Government for the leadership they are showing on the issue, but can he confirm that a serious debate at the UN in the autumn of this year is still the target? Can he also reassure the House that action is being taken to bring on board nations such as Russia, the United States, India, Egypt and Israel, which have been less than enthusiastic about the prospect? Does he not agree that what is very encouraging in this country is the support from UK defence manufacturers and, indeed, key trade unionists for the idea?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, there is a lot of support in this country, and there has been growing support in the international community, but discussions are plainly still needed with China, the United States and Russia. It will not be easy to bring everyone on board by the time of the UN meeting in the autumn, but it is a worthwhile target to try to make sure that the process goes through another major landmark at that stage. That is our objective.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, the Prime Minister is fond of saying that Britain is a bridge between the EU and the United States. The EU is fully on board with regard to this initiative. What are the Government doing to persuade our closest ally that it is also in American interests to sign up to an arms trade treaty, given the extent to which arms now circulate to non-state actors throughout the world?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, a number of major nations—the United States is one—have considerable arms industries. There needs to be a lot more persuasion that there must be regulation of the way in which arms flows take place without those states feeling that their industries are liable to be destroyed in the process. That is a difficult discussion—there is no question about it—and so it is with other countries. We are pursuing it on a daily basis, making sure that we take every opportunity to discuss the possibilities of this treaty.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, given the possible difficulties of getting universal agreement to such a treaty, has the Foreign Office given any consideration to a treaty on a much narrower basis involving, say, the European Union and its main preferential trading partners, which would account for a proportion—perhaps the Minister can say how much—of the trade in question?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I do not have figures on the proportion of the trade in question, but there have been suggestions that there should be—if I may coin a phrase—a coalition of the willing on the matter. However, at this stage we do not believe that it is impossible to persuade a very much wider group; a large number of nations have already agreed. I do not think that all that is solid support; just saying it is different from doing it. We have work to do with those who have agreed, let alone with those who have not. We now have a core. The EU is a core; and there is the Commonwealth, which is very diverse as it is made up of developed and developing countries. That is a basis for being optimistic.

Lord Elton: My Lords, will the Government use the opportunity of these negotiations to develop with other countries a strategy for bringing an end to the use of and trade in cluster weapons?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, it is the intention to try to get cluster weapons into international treaties, but they may not fit exactly into this treaty. Noble Lords will be aware that several paths are being followed in arms limitation talks, of which this is one, but the point is taken.

Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, if the treaty is concluded, will my noble friend use his best endeavours to ensure that it is provided with institutional support to urge governments to ratify and to provide ongoing monitoring and inspections? Without ongoing institutional support, a treaty can so easily become a dead letter.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I agree with my noble and learned friend that the treaty, if it is secured, must have the machinery behind it to deliver it. I made the point a moment ago that some of those who had already consented to the idea of a treaty might not be so firm in their resolve. At each stage, the thing has to be nailed down and the machinery put in place; otherwise I fear that we will look back on this as a wasted opportunity.

Lord Garden: My Lords, given the concerns about lack of enforcement of the Export Control Act, lack of regulation of brokering and lack of formal, end-use monitoring, what undertakings has the Defence Export Service Organisation, a sub-department of the Ministry of Defence, given in helping him with his aim of getting the arms trade treaty through?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, the key process on the regulatory side is to ensure that we have in this country the most robust system of export licensing possible and, indeed, to ensure that the end-user process is an integral part of it. That is a separate process, and we will be going through it in any event. If we are as continually successful as we aim to be in that process, the arms trade treaty will complete the picture, rather than supplement it.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, given the distraction from investment in the most modern technologies caused by our excessive concentration on arms exports, given the cost of subsidising such exports, and given the risk of disruption to our most sensitive trading patterns, alongside the fact that the export of arms is not really a decent way for Britain to pay its way in the world, does my noble friend agree that there will be great benefits to our economy if the treaty can be successfully negotiated?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. I should like to see a process in which the key building blocks of this treaty guided us in the arms trade. There is good evidence that, where people turn their back on illicit or dangerous arms trading that destabilises regions, they often produce alternatives in industrial production that are of even greater economic benefit.

The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the millennium review summit was disappointing in the respect that it set up a new peace-building commission that was designed for post-conflict reconstruction and development and not for conflict prevention and control of the arms trade?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, one part of the UN conference last September was the clear demand made by the secretary-general that huge effort should go into the prevention of conflict. Some of the new human rights institutions are seeking to restore states to some sort of viability and have the direct aim of trying to prevent conflict breaking out. The ethos of "prevention is better than cure" is fundamental to the potential success of ensuring that even when a state returns to peace it stays at peace—because that is not assured either.

Identity Cards

Lord Glentoran: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they intend to include residents of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic in a compulsory identity card register and identity card scheme; and, if so, how in practice they will achieve this.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the identity cards scheme and the register will apply within the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, to legal residents of all nationalities who are aged 16-plus. It is intended to become compulsory when Parliament so decides.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Is the noble Lord aware that the Irish Minister McDowell has admitted that the introduction of ID cards in GB will have an impact on cross-border travel for all Irish citizens? In relation to the Acts of Irish citizenship of 1949 and 1956 and the 1998 agreement, does he agree with Minister McDowell?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the introduction of the ID cards scheme has no impact whatever on the common travel area.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, the noble Lord said that the scheme was intended to be compulsory "when Parliament so decides". Should he not now say, "if Parliament so decides"?

Lord Rooker: When or if, my Lords—it is up to Parliament.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that the carrying of British identity cards by nationalists and republicans in Northern Ireland will give rise to huge policing and enforcement problems? Is that not one among many arguments for affirming the resolution of this House to make ID cards, in conjunction with passports, truly voluntary?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the initial part of that question was incredibly extravagant and simply not true. In answer to the noble Lord's general point, I must say that no one in Northern Ireland has to carry a British identity card. Under the Good Friday agreement, all citizens in Northern Ireland have a choice—they can have a British and an Irish passport. Following the introduction of ID cards, they can choose to have a British/UK ID card which can be used for travel; or a plain identity card which cannot be used for travel; or they can exercise their rights under the European Economic Community travel area as Irish citizens and have the necessary documentation for that as citizens of a member state. So the issue raised in the question cannot arise.

Lord Selsdon: My Lords, if we are issuing biometric passports and biometric identity cards without an identity card register, why do we need an identity card register?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I have been missing from some of the debates here during the past few months as I have been fulfilling my other duties. I understand that the House has spent several hours on the identity card legislation, and there may be one final opportunity to do so. I am sure that there have been enormously long debates about it, which I imagine the noble Lord will have attended.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, have Her Majesty's Government had discussions with the Government of the Irish Republic about sharing or exchanging databases that will be forthcoming from the legislation?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, it is a UK register, and it is not for sharing. As has been indicated during the debates, information, particularly in respect of security and criminal matters, that may be required by the jurisdictions that deal with matters in other states is another issue, but there will be no sharing of the database with the Irish Government. There will be no government-to-government sharing—I make that absolutely clear. However, if the situation arose, we would make use of the normal rules which apply in respect of the investigatory and prosecuting authorities in other jurisdictions. The Irish Government have been kept fully informed about what we are doing. There have been lots of meetings between Ministers in the Home Office and the Republic, and officials in the Home Office have kept their counterparts in the Irish Republic fully informed about what is happening. What happens in the Republic is a matter for the Government there and is nothing to do with us.

EU: Food Packaging

Lord Vinson: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What steps they will take to preserve the traditional measurement of milk in pints, in the light of proposed harmonisation of food packaging in the European Union.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, the noble Lord may have in mind the proposals under discussion in Brussels to harmonise current restrictions on package sizes for pre-packed products, but I can assure the House that there is no threat to the use of the pint for the sale of milk, either in the Commission's proposals or in the amendments recently proposed by the European Parliament.

Lord Vinson: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and can quite understand how he forgot to mention that, in this morning's news, subsequent to this Question being framed, it was reported that Conservative MEPs had secured a permanent exclusion of the pinta from such legislation.
	Does the noble Lord recall that the House has seen a continuing flow of damaging regulation? Over the past few weeks, we have had the prohibition of the burning of tallow, the prohibition of strychnine and the change in the size of loaf. Is it not time that we brought back to this once self-governing country the ability to administer ourselves, at least at this level, by having a higher degree of subsidiarity through repatriating many of these powers?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I am surprised that this straightforward Question about milk and its packaging has led to this tirade against the EU. I should have thought that the noble Lord would welcome the proposals, which are part of a deregulatory approach by the EU. He claims the success of MEPs in this endeavour, but I should have thought that it was clear that there was no prospect of the pint being abolished in the UK, so I am not sure what his MEPs have achieved.

Lord Harrison: My Lords, does my noble friend agree with the European Commission, which declared on 3 February in the Daily Mail that it was in favour of keeping the British pint and loaf? That comes under a new drive to cut red tape and leave businesses free to decide the form and size of packaging of meat and, indeed, milk. Is it not possible that the Opposition could decide whether the Conservative MEPs are excluded from their own group of the EPP?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I agree with the thrust of my noble friend's comments. As we have a few moments, I should try to clarify the exact position on milk, because that was the thrust of the Question. The current position is that milk in returnable containers must be sold in multiples of third- or half-pints, but milk sold in other than returnable containers—via supermarkets—must be sold in specified metric sizes, including multiples of 284 millilitres, which noble Lords will already have spotted is equal to half a pint, so either way you get a pint measure. The Commission's original proposals were to do away with any controls and to be totally deregulatory in this respect. The European Parliament's amendment is designed to bring forward the status quo on milk.

Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, I declare an interest, now more than 30 years old—ancient but still lively—which goes back to the time before Britain had become a member of the European Community, when for two years, with all-party consent, my duties as a Cabinet Minister included responsibility for metrication. Can the Minister confirm that during the three decades since then, during which time my noble friend Lady Thatcher was Secretary of State for Education, our children have been educated in the metric system rather that the imperial system and that, with the partial exception of draught ale and milk, all other liquids, from tomato juice to petrol, are served in litres and not pints or gallons? Since then, every country in the Commonwealth, with the partial exception of Canada, has followed our example and completed the process of metrication. Is it not now time for us to follow that example?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord is right that the process of metrication goes back to 1965 and certainly precedes our entry into what was then the European Economic Community. It is right that the Government encourage the use of metric units of measurement for all purposes. However, they recognise that there are sectors of the population that retain a preference for imperial units, hence the staged approach to the introduction of metrication. I believe that the noble and learned Lord is also right about liquids, although I would add draught cider to the list of those that can still be dispensed by way of a pint.

Lord Kinnock: My Lords, will the Minister, with his ministerial colleagues, strive to secure the extension of consumer protection legislation from goods in the European Union to newspapers? Does he agree that if that were achieved it might save Members of the House and others the trouble of being misled and over-excited by completely false newspaper reports that the pinta is to be abolished by the dreaded Europe?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, my noble friend makes an interesting point. He is absolutely right to say that the issue was stirred up by a misleading headline in a newspaper. It is disgraceful that that should be the case. In the report that I read, the arithmetic was, I think, not right. It said that if one were served 500 millilitres that would be 64 millilitres short of a pint, but, I believe, it is 68 millilitres short.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, does the Minister agree that most people are more concerned with the quality of what is inside the packaging than the size of it? What is the DTI doing to ensure that British-produced beef, lamb and milk can be labelled as British and not those products that are produced somewhere else but simply repackaged here?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I would have thought that the quality of a product is important, but it is not the only important matter. Certainly, price and labelling are important, so that consumers can make real choices. The issue raised by the noble Baroness is outwith my current brief, and perhaps I may pass on that.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, if the sale of milk in pints is still permitted by our lords and masters in Brussels, do we retain the veto on its prohibition by any future EU legislation, or can this ancient and important freedom be removed by qualified majority voting?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I have set out the position. The pint is not at risk. Noble Lords are scratching away at this to try to resurrect a story where there is none. I hope that the House will take pleasure in the fact that we continue to enjoy our pint of milk and leave it at that.

Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I have in the past been very fond of pints—not of milk. This is leading to a little confusion, however, because the farmers are paid by the litre, at about 17p. They are losing money at that level. The public buy their pint—which they think has been paid for at 17p—for about 34p, which is double the price that farmers get for a litre. In fact, the supermarkets are getting three times the price in the process—it is about 10p for a pint, for which they are charging 34p. Does that not lead to confusion? Should the Government not do something about getting the price of milk up for the farmers?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, that is way outside the original Question. I am sure that the Government want the market to work properly in this respect. I am sorry to hear that there are impoverished farmers.

Terrorism (Northern Ireland) Bill

Read a third time, and passed.

Transport (Wales) Bill

Read a third time.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
	Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, I will speak briefly, which is unusual at this late stage, to make an important point which I could not have made earlier.
	This may well be the last Bill of its kind relating to Wales that this Parliament will deal with if the Government of Wales Bill, shortly to come before this House, is enacted. Since we last discussed this Bill, some of us have received, from the Secretary of State for Wales, what is described as an illustrative example of the operation of Clause 94 of the new Government of Wales Bill, which provides for measures passed by the National Assembly to become law, in accordance with the provisions of that Bill and an Order in Council.
	The illustrative example provided by the Government relates to highways and transport, and the documentation attached to it states that it is:
	"as if the Transport (Wales) Bill did not exist and an Order in Council under what is currently Clause 94 of the Government of Wales Bill was required to enable the Assembly to make provision in relation to strategic transport planning by the Welsh ministers and local or other public authorities".
	I raise the matter at this stage, not because it affects the passage or otherwise of this Bill, but because it is a pointer to an alternative form of primary legislation that the Government have in mind for Wales in future, if the new Government of Wales Bill is enacted. I have now drawn that novel procedure to your Lordships' attention, and I am content.
	On Question, Bill passed.

Child Protection: Shaken Baby Syndrome

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, with the leave the House, I wish to make a Statement announcing the outcome of my review of shaken baby syndrome cases and to make the House aware of new guidance relating to expert witnesses in court.
	The House will recall the high-profile cases of Sally Clark, Trupti Patel and Angela Cannings, all of which related to allegations of unlawful killing of children. It was following these cases that I undertook to review cases where a parent or carer had been convicted of killing a baby or infant under the age of two in the past 10 years.
	In December 2004, I reported to the House that 297 cases had been reviewed and that 28 were found to have questionable convictions. Today, I report that I have fulfilled my pledge to re-examine the 88 cases which were identified at the outset of this process as shaken baby cases.
	The review of the shaken baby cases was undertaken once the Court of Appeal ruled in July last year. Today, I can report that three cases have been found to have questionable convictions. The three convictions identified as questionable are: one male convicted of murder in 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment, who is still serving that sentence; one male convicted of manslaughter in 2001 and sentenced to three years' imprisonment, who is no longer in prison; and, finally, one female convicted of manslaughter in 1994 and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, who is no longer in prison.
	The cases of Sally Clark, Trupti Patel and Angela Cannings generated a wide-ranging medical debate about infant deaths and the causes of shaken baby syndrome. The judgment of the Court of Appeal, which considered the evidence of 25 expert witnesses from all disciplines, is now considered the case law authority on shaken baby syndrome and has helped clarify the law. It stated that the presence of all or some of three particular injuries is a strong pointer towards shaken baby syndrome. The court was therefore uniquely placed to comment upon this difficult area, and the differing medical evidence put before it.
	The court's primary focus was on the significance of the so-called "triad" of injuries which, when all or some are present in an infant, is suggestive of deliberate harm. These consist of subdural haemorrhaging, retinal haemorrhaging and encephalopathy or brain swelling.
	The court's critical focus was on the degree of force required to cause those injuries, or indeed whether any force was required. The Court of Appeal found that the presence of the triad of injuries is consistent with shaken baby syndrome, but the triad alone cannot automatically lead to a conclusion that the infant has been shaken; and, secondly, that the triad, however, remains, in the court's words, "a strong pointer" to shaken baby syndrome.
	Taking into account the judgment of the Court of Appeal, a thorough review of the 88 cases was carried out by a senior CPS lawyer and independent counsel, who were part of a team that conducted my wider review into infant homicides in 2004. I have taken an active personal role in supervising the review and believe that we have acted carefully and as swiftly as practicable in reaching conclusions.
	The review has found that three convictions may give cause for concern about the safety of those convictions. In the considerable majority of the remaining shaken baby syndrome cases, other extraneous evidence existed to support the findings of shaken baby syndrome. A few examples are: evidence that the infant had been struck against a wall causing catastrophic injuries; admissions to shaking and punching the infant; earlier fractures; and head injuries occurring on two separate occasions.
	My office has written to the legal representatives of those involved in the three cases suggesting that it could be appropriate for the safety of their client's conviction to be referred to the Court of Appeal or the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The letters stress that the determination of the review does not mean that the convictions are unsafe. That will be a matter for the Court of Appeal to decide in due course, if the defendants decide to take the matter further.
	While I believe that, after careful review, the vast majority of shaken baby syndrome convictions do not give rise to concern, it remains open to anyone with such a conviction to seek leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal or a referral to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. To ensure that this problem does not happen again, the Director of Public Prosecutions will be issuing further guidance to prosecutors as a result of this review.
	Infant death cases such as those of Angela Cannings and Sally Clark led to concern among practitioners and the public at the way in which the criminal law dealt with issues surrounding expert evidence. It is a concern I share. I can therefore announce today that, as a result of work between the Crown Prosecution Service and the Association of Chief Police Officers, we will now be implementing new guidance that focuses on the requirements made on such witnesses in terms of disclosure. Where experts are police employees, they will continue to work to the requirements of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996, and in particular the obligations to retain, record and reveal.
	Experts who are not police employees will receive a guidance booklet setting out what is required of them, including the need to reveal to the investigator all the material they will have created in working on the case. They will also be required to certify that they have revealed to the prosecution any information that might adversely affect their credibility or competence as an expert witness. They are reminded that they must not give expert opinion beyond their area of expertise. This guidance will set standards across the criminal justice system for the use of expert witnesses.
	The new guidance is one of a number of initiatives under way across government that will improve the management of expert evidence in the criminal courts. In addition, the Criminal Procedure Rules Committee is considering new rules that would provide explicitly for pre-trial discussion between experts to identify areas of agreement or disagreement and so save court time.
	I believe that the clear and thorough guidelines that I have announced today will assist in bringing about greater confidence in the criminal justice system in handling such difficult cases where expert witnesses are called on. I am making available copies of the full addendum report and of the guidance to which I referred.
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Earl Howe: My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General for his Statement, which I welcome without hesitation. I also thank him for making available to me this morning an advance copy of his review. I fully acknowledge the detailed work that was carried out into infant death by the central review team, which resulted in the publishing of the review in December 2004. Likewise, I very much welcome the efforts made by the noble and learned Lord to ensure that a timely review of cases of apparent shaken baby syndrome was carried out in the wake of the Court of Appeal's judgment in July last year.
	We are dealing here with the gravest possible matters. The noble and learned Lord echoed the feelings of us all in his review when he said that those individuals who abuse or kill the children in their care—as we know, sadly, such people exist—must be brought to justice and dealt with appropriately. By the same token, I am sure that we all believe that we should do all that we possibly can to ensure that a misplaced prosecution or, worse, a wrongful conviction for murder, manslaughter or grievous bodily harm cannot occur. That means ensuring that the processes and protocols employed by doctors, social workers, the police and other investigating authorities are robust. I very much welcome what the noble and learned Lord had to say about the guidance in that context.
	The trouble with so-called shaken baby syndrome is that it is an inexact science, notwithstanding the finding of the Court of Appeal. It is inexact in two senses. In the first place, as the noble and learned Lord said, shaken baby syndrome currently amounts to an accepted hypothesis. As I understand it, there is no agreed body of peer-reviewed evidence that shows that shaking a small child, even roughly, can bring about the triad of symptoms to which the noble and learned Lord referred. The science is also inexact in that the symptoms by which shaken baby syndrome is commonly identified are potentially ambiguous. The work done by Dr John Plunkett, a forensic pathologist mentioned in the noble and learned Lord's review, identified 18 independently witnessed accidental and trivial falls that had produced features allegedly characteristic of shaken baby syndrome. By definition, the brain and retinal haemorrhages in those cases could not have been due to shaking.
	The noble and learned Lord's review also mentions the work of Dr Geddes. Although the Court of Appeal felt that Dr Geddes's work was thus far unproven, it is important to stress that it has by no means been discredited. Indeed, it must be considered to be of the utmost importance. Geddes examined brain tissues obtained at autopsy from 53 severely battered children. In only two of those did he discover injury consistent with severe backwards and forwards motion of the brain within the skull. For the majority, the cause of death was oxygen deprivation, which caused a swelling of the brain and bleeding on its surface. The same oxygen deprivation caused bleeding in the eye, and thus accounted for the retinal haemorrhages. Indeed, the triad of symptoms mentioned by the noble and learned Lord can be caused by a variety of quite innocent events or conditions, such as an adverse reaction to vaccination or medication, or simply a difficult birth.
	This brings me to my first question; could the noble and learned Lord confirm that the guidance that he mentioned, which was issued to health practitioners and social workers, will reflect the key findings of the Court of Appeal that this triad of symptoms cannot automatically or necessarily lead to a conclusion that an infant has been deliberately shaken? It is, I think, vital for public confidence and infant safety that a parent arriving at the accident and emergency department of a hospital or at a doctor's surgery with a child suffering from the type of injuries at issue will not be considered guilty until proven innocent. Can the noble and learned Lord also tell me what work has been done by the Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners to promulgate appropriate training for paediatric pathologists?
	The noble and learned Lord also mentioned extraneous evidence which led him not to question the safety of quite a large number of the convictions under review. One of those extraneous factors was that the child in question had suffered earlier fractures in his or her life. Is the noble and learned Lord aware of growing evidence that signs of so-called metaphyseal fractures in children are potentially ambiguous? Some are indicative of the deliberate twisting and wrenching of a limb; others are merely signs of abnormalities of growth points in the bone which occur quite naturally. Indeed, there is a body of medical opinion which has identified calcium deficiency in premature infants as a cause of quite normal variance in the radiological appearance of growing bones. If such symptoms were taken as indicative of deliberate harm in those children whom he mentioned, would the noble and learned Lord be kind enough to tell us?
	On the present rather than the past, I understand that the review concentrated on two past cases where convictions were secured. Can the noble and learned Lord tell me whether he proposes to instigate a scrutiny of current cases involving not just infant homicide but all cases where shaken baby syndrome might be a factor? Can he also confirm that this review has been carried out personally by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and can he inform the House whether any current cases are being discontinued as a result of such scrutiny?
	Finally, I shall touch on one other area of concern which I fully acknowledge is not within the purview of the noble and learned Lord, but I think it would be remiss of me not to mention it. My noble friend Lord Kingsland raised this matter when the review of infant deaths was debated in December 2004. Will the noble and learned Lord assure the House that his ministerial colleagues have under active review cases in which care orders have been made by the family courts and where shaken baby syndrome may have been an issue? Will he assure the House that such cases will be considered in the light of the July 2005 Court of Appeal judgment?
	The noble and learned Lord will know that the number of criminal cases is, thankfully, fairly few. But I am aware of many cases in the family courts where children, on the balance of probabilities in relation to the evidence, are taken into care as a preventive measure and, in some cases, are adopted on the evidence of medical experts and others. Where there is due cause, it is right that that should happen. Where it happens and the evidence is ambiguous, that should cause us all the gravest possible disquiet. It is important that the lessons learnt from this review should be promulgated just as widely in that forum as they are now in the context of criminal investigations.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General for repeating the Statement. Unlike the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I did not have the advantage of having a copy of the review, but I do not hold the noble and learned Lord responsible for that. Unlike the noble Earl, I do not intend to concentrate on medical details. The Court of Appeal has the advantage over me in that respect, having pulled together the evidence of the 25 leading experts. However, I have some questions on the very helpful Statement which tells us what the Government intend to do.
	On the process of the review, was there a thorough review of all the paperwork from beginning to end, including all the evidence and statements, and not just the CPS notes of the case? On page 4 of the Statement, the noble and learned Lord said:
	"In the considerable majority of the remaining SBS cases, other extraneous evidence existed to support the findings of shaken baby syndrome".
	Does that mean that in a minority of the 85 cases, there was no extraneous evidence apart from the medical evidence? Why does that justify not considering that those cases gave cause for concern?
	We need to ensure that there is justice for parents and justice for children. Sadly, it is known that in a very few cases, parents do harm their children. So it is vital that there are no presumptions whatever. Courts should come to their conclusions solely on the basis of the evidence before them, much of which will inevitably come from expert witnesses who must not see themselves as advocates for one side or the other. They must give their evidence impartially, based on their expertise in their field. I very much welcome the guidance which the Government have prepared for them. But what guidance will be given to the courts on the advice that juries should be given on how to view the evidence and the credibility of those experts?
	On page 5 of the Statement, the noble and learned Lord said that the experts,
	"will also be required to certify that they have revealed to the prosecution any information that might adversely affect their credibility".
	What happens to the experts if they are subsequently found not to have done that?
	Finally, how would the measures that the noble and learned Lord has announced today have affected the cases of Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Trupti Patel? That is their acid test.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl and the noble Baroness for their welcome for this report. There is a great deal in what they said with which I wholeheartedly agree. For example, I entirely agree with the noble Baroness that we need justice for parents and for children. Sadly, there are cases where parents or others in charge of children do them unlawful violence. The law must be there to protect those children. Equally, I agree that the law must operate in such a way that only proper cases are brought and that we must strive to avoid anything which approaches a miscarriage of justice. I therefore agree with the noble Baroness that it is vital for there to be no presumption. However, I take slight issue: there should be one presumption throughout all these criminal cases—the presumption that the suspect is innocent until proven guilty by evidence. I am sure the noble Baroness would agree with that.
	Perhaps I may turn to the questions posed by the noble Earl. In his very erudite observations on my report, he pointed to the present state of evidence in relation to shaken baby syndrome. In one sense he is right. There is no laboratory evidence to prove what happens if you shake a baby in a particular way. That is for the very obvious reason that no one would conceivably think of conducting such an experiment. But the leading experts to whom the noble Earl referred both gave evidence to the Court of Appeal, which was able to judge their opinions and weigh them against contrary points of view.
	One very important factor impressed the Court of Appeal and has always seemed to me to be significant. If there were the possibility of children suffering such catastrophic injuries as to cause internal bleeding within the skull, bleeding behind the eyes or brain swelling as a result of everyday occurrences, one would expect the casualty wards of our hospitals to be filled with children who had suffered such injuries but had survived. That is not the experience of paediatricians. It is a powerful factor and tells one what is actually happening. However, a critical point made by the Court of Appeal in what was a very wise judgment was that because of the state of medical evidence, it is necessary to look at all the facts and evidence of the case, not just automatically to take the view that the presence of particular injuries means there must be criminal responsibility.
	The noble Earl then asked me whether the guidance will reflect those key findings. The guidance being issued today by the Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecutors, which will be publicly available, deals in detail with the judgment of the Court of Appeal and precisely those indications.
	He also asked about the work being done by the Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners on the training for forensic pathologists. I am not sure that that is a matter for the council. Certainly the Home Office recognises that the issue of training for forensic pathologists is important and work is under way to deal with it. He also asked me, by reference to the example I gave in the report of the sort of case where the conviction appeared to be safe, whether those might include cases where the previous fractures sustained by the children were ambiguous because of bone structure. Those reviewing the cases had before them all the available papers, including medical reports, which will have been put in at the trial and relied upon by defence experts. I anticipate that if a defence expert thought it was arguable that a fracture was not the result of unlawful violence but something else, it would have come out in the report. However, I shall take away the question and consider it.
	The noble Earl went on to ask me about current cases. At the time I issued the first review, I also announced that the Director of Public Prosecutions had called for a review of all pending cases. Six in particular were looked at, and of those three were dropped. The Director of Public Prosecutions looked personally at those cases with the exception of one where he had a personal conflict of interest. As a result that case was looked at by the Director of Casework. The matter was taken very seriously and of course the guidance being issued to prosecutors today indicates that this issue is to be taken seriously, as it very properly ought to be.
	Finally, he referred to the difficult issues that arise in the family courts. The House has discussed those. They do not give rise to precisely the same questions; the issue of the welfare of the child comes into the consideration, not just the question of criminal responsibility. He will recall that at the time of the Cannings judgment, guidance was given by my ministerial colleagues to local authorities to undertake a review of decisions they had made. I cannot tell him precisely what has happened in that department since the decision of the Court of Appeal, but I will pass on his question to my ministerial colleagues and come back if I can give the assurance that he seeks.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked about the process of review and whether it looked at all the evidence. It looked at all the evidence that was available to the prosecution; of course, it cannot look at evidence that may be available to the defence. Somebody may occasionally think there is something suspect about a case but says it is for the defendant to determine whether he wants to take it further. Sometimes the defendant or the defendant's advisers may be in possession of information the prosecution does not have which casts a very different light on that person's culpability. In some cases—I am not including these three cases—the defendant, following a conviction, may admit responsibility.
	The noble Baroness rightly picked up an infelicity of language in the Statement. I will put the matter this way: in all the 85 cases—except the three I mentioned—a careful review has been performed of all the evidence to be satisfied that the convictions appear to the reviewers, on the information they had, to be safe. If the Statement appeared to leave a little gap, that was not the intention.
	The noble Baroness then made the point, with which I thoroughly agree, that experts must not set themselves up as advocates. They are not paid; they are not hired guns for one side or another. They should be objective, acting within their own sphere of expertise, seeking to help the court reach a just solution. I have no doubt that when the courts give guidance to juries, they will follow exactly the same line. What if experts do not disclose what they ought to disclose? First, they will not get work in the future, which is a pretty important consideration. As to whether their professional bodies may take action against them, that is a matter for them. In extreme cases, others might even take action against them for making a deceptive statement.
	I hope that I have dealt with all of the questions that have been raised. Again, I thank the noble Earl and the noble Baroness for their welcome.

Lord Morris of Aberavon: My Lords, I welcome the great care my noble and learned friend has put into examining this very difficult issue and his statement that he has had a personal role in supervising the review. That is a great encouragement to all of us. It is a consolation that in only three cases out of the large number that have been looked at, he has encouraged a reference.
	As regards the future, will my noble and learned friend expand a little about the change in the guidelines on disclosure? Are they substantial or marginal? Will they apply only to this kind of case? Is he satisfied that the general rules of disclosure are working properly?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble and learned friend for what he has said. The change in disclosure for experts is intended to deal with all experts. The House may recall that one of the problems that arose in the Sally Clark case—indeed, the issue upon which the Court of Appeal overturned the conviction—was the failure by a Dr Williams, who gave evidence, to reveal that during the autopsy of one of the children, he had discovered evidence which suggested that that child might have suffered from a particular disorder. That never came out in the trial, so it is very important that in these cases that sort of evidence is made available. We want to emphasise that.
	Whether or not the rules of disclosure are working properly is a broader question to do with the criminal justice system in general. Too often, the keys to the warehouse have been delivered to defendants instead of taking a much more focused approach to disclosure, looking at those things which the CPIA Act requires to be disclosed.

Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, reminded the House, many of these problems apply to family courts in exactly the same way as they apply to criminal cases, and sometimes to an even more complicated degree. For example, a tribunal judge will not be dealing with a case where a death has occurred and where there is therefore post-mortem evidence to assist the court in its findings.
	As a family judge for some 15 years, I never ceased to be horrified by how relatively little shaking was necessary to cause the most dreadful injuries in a child. While it does not arise from the question, I should like to see a massive public investment in disseminating information to parents, particularly young mothers. Many of the cases that I saw involved a 16 or 17 year-old mother with her first child who, with little support and after months of sleeplessness, had shaken a child for just a few seconds and caused that child to be nothing but a vegetable for the rest of its life. I should like to see millions of pounds of public money invested in bringing that truth to people who very often do not have the slightest intention of injuring a child.
	In criminal law, the standard of proof is very clear: proof beyond reasonable doubt. In civil law, which is relevant in the family courts, the bar is not always at the same level. In a splendid judgment of this House about eight or nine years ago—I think it was re N—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Nicholls, said this:
	"The more serious the allegation, the more cogent must the evidence be".
	I am not sure that I have his exact words, but I certainly have the content and force of them. If you are dealing with a case of the most deliberate wickedness, where an angry boyfriend is jealous of the child and has deliberately set out to do the maximum injury to it, it is perfectly clear what the level of evidence must be. But when the case involves the loving mother of 16 to whom I referred, it is at a different level. I appreciate that a court dealing with a care order must have in mind considerations of possible danger, but there must first of all be a specific finding of fact; that is, whether the child has been deliberately harmed.
	I hope the House will forgive me for pointing out those matters. I am sure that full publicity will be given in the field of child care, where so many of these problems replicate those which exist in the criminal law.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I am sure the House is grateful to the noble Lord for sharing his experience in these areas. I am not sure that I would quite go along with what he said about the prevalence of serious injury from limited shaking, but we need not go into that. He made two important points: first, the importance of parents being educated in how they should deal with their infants and children. I am sure that he is absolutely right about that. Few departments are in a position to commit millions of pounds to any such campaign—mine is not—but I sympathise with the point that he made.
	His second important point was about family cases. I am not responsible for those, as the noble Earl indicated. Different considerations are involved, not just the standard of proof to which he rightly drew attention—as he did to the judgment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Nicholls—but also the different issue which arises in family and children cases. The primary issue must be the best interests of the child. I do not envy family judges who are sometimes faced with evidence which is less than compelling, but also with a real concern about the risk to which a child may be put if they do not make an order. That is a very difficult judgment to have to make, but we expect our professional judges to make it.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that when asking social workers to make these very difficult and delicate judgments in families, and when we ask them to follow the guidance that he has produced, we must allow many of them to have smaller caseloads, so they can give them due thought? Does he further agree that we must seek to address the shortage of child and family social workers, standing at 10 per cent generally and 20 per cent in London? Will he communicate to his colleagues, Beverley Hughes and Maria Eagle, my desire that they are encouraged in their work in the area of social work? In addition, in his review of the circumstances of these cases, has he had the opportunity to consider whether, if these families had had more support, the deaths of their children might have been avoided?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, the noble Earl makes some important points. I shall pass on to my colleagues what he says about social workers, which is of course very much outside my remit. The guidance that I referred to today is for those being called to give expert evidence in criminal trials. As to the need to support families, that is something that this Government certainly believe in. We have talked in this House before about the Government's respect action plan, a key plank of which is support to parents. We all know that there are situations in which parents, though a variety of external circumstances, can lose the control that they ought to have and therefore cause injury to their children.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, this report will be of widespread interest throughout the United Kingdom—in Scotland, as well as in the areas for which the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General is responsible. Can he tell the House, in this United Kingdom Parliament, whether the Lord Advocate intends a review of the kind that the noble and learned Lord has just told us about in his Statement? Will the guidance for expert witnesses and pathologists that he intends issuing be issued in Scotland—or will similar guidance be issued? I hope that he can tell us what is happening in Scotland in that regard, because it will be a matter of great interest. It is a very serious matter and it applies to the whole United Kingdom.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, criminal law in Scotland is in a special category and not a matter for this Parliament—it has long been a matter particular to Scotland. I am afraid that I cannot tell the noble Baroness whether the Lord Advocate is conducting a similar review, but he knows very well that this is taking place because we have discussed it in the past. I shall make sure that he is aware of the noble Baroness's comments and I have no doubt that he will ask me to pass on any observations that he has in this regard.

Work and Families Bill

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to introduce this Bill to the House. It is significant legislation and it will enhance Britain's economic success, raising employment levels and improving the standards of living for families.
	I start by putting the Bill in the context of the Government's strategy. One role of government, and in particular my department, is to create the right environment for business to succeed so that our economy continues to grow, creating more jobs with greater security and better rewards from working. As part of this, we want to ensure that all those in the workplace, including the most vulnerable workers, have the right to decent minimum standards and that employers and employees are aware of their rights and responsibilities under the law.
	Today's families face huge challenges in balancing their home and work life. Giving children the best start in life and the demands of an increasingly competitive economy mean that many parents often struggle to balance their work and caring responsibilities. Changes in family life and working patterns are set to continue. In future we are likely to see an increasing number of women and men taking time out from the labour market to care for children or elderly relatives or both. At the same time, businesses will face increasing competition from emerging markets such as China and the rest of Asia. An ageing population and a decline in the number of people of working age across Europe will increase the need for a wide pool of skilled employees. The purpose of the Work and Families Bill is to respond to these changing patterns of employment to ensure that parents and others with caring responsibilities have genuine choices about how they balance their work and family life, to ensure that children get the best start in life, and to help business benefit from the widest possible talent pool.
	We have already built a strong foundation of support for working families. Since 1997 we have created 1.2 million additional childcare places, guaranteed all three and four year-olds a free part-time nursery place, and improved financial support for increased child benefit and working tax credits. Parents have benefited from improved maternity leave and pay and new rights to paternity and adoption leave. We are also helping people to remain in work by encouraging the spread of flexible working. We have introduced a new right to request flexible working for parents of young and disabled children. At the same time we encourage employers to offer flexible working opportunities right across their workforce by promoting the business benefits and encouraging them to follow best practice.
	This targeted light-touch approach has helped the success of the law. Businesses have been able to grow flexible working at a pace they can manage, and many are opening up opportunities for flexible working to more of their employees, not just those covered by the law. Now 5.4 million employees work through some form of flexible working, and seven in 10 employers say they are willing to consider flexible working requests from all staff.
	We have come a long way, but, as I said earlier, we will face greater challenges in the future. The Work and Families Bill, which I present to your Lordships today, builds on our achievement and addresses these issues. The Bill has four main parts. First, it will introduce powers to extend maternity and adoption pay from six to 12 months. We will bring in regulations to extend the period of pay to 9 months from April 2007, and to 12 months by the end of this Parliament. This will benefit around 400,000 parents per year, enabling them to spend more time with their children when it is most valuable—when they are very young.
	Secondly, it will pave the way for fathers to be more involved in their child's upbringing and give mothers the opportunity to return to work earlier, should they wish to do so. While around the first six months of leave will be reserved for the mother, eligible fathers will be entitled to up to six months' additional paternity leave during the second six months of the child's life. Some of this leave could be paid if the mother returns to work and has some of her pay entitlement remaining. This is an important step. We need to ensure that it benefits both employers and employees, and that we give business enough time to plan for this change. In line with the approach of this Bill, we will shortly be consulting fully on the details of the scheme to ensure that it is manageable for business, and that administrative burdens are minimised.
	Thirdly, the Bill will introduce powers to extend the successful right to request flexible working for carers to adults, something carers' organisations have greatly welcomed. There are around 6.6 million people in Britain with caring responsibilities, and about 3.5 million of them are working. This new right will help those carers who want to stay in work to better balance their care and work responsibilities, and help them stay in the workplace. Noble Lords will be aware that we are currently consulting stakeholders on the draft regulations and how best to define which carers should be covered by the legislation in the way that meets the needs of employers and employees.
	The Bill will make it easier for employers to manage the administration of these rights, and for employers and parents to stay in touch during maternity leave. Employers will be able to calculate a daily rate for statutory maternity pay, if this will help them to pay it at the same time as a woman's usual pay day. Women can choose when their maternity pay will start, allowing their pay and leave to start at the same time. Employers and employees will be able to agree a limited number of "keeping in touch" days, without sacrificing statutory payments or bringing a woman's maternity leave to an end. In regulations there will be increased notice periods for mothers who wish to return to work earlier or later than originally agreed to give greater certainty to employers.
	In addition, the Bill delivers on our commitment to increase statutory entitlement to annual leave. We are committed to increasing the current four-week minimum leave entitlement to reflect permanent bank and public holidays. We will undertake a full and extensive consultation with stakeholders before detailed changes are put before Parliament, as well as gathering more data on existing arrangements. And the Bill will provide a one-off power to increase the maximum amount of a week's pay affecting compensation payments in connection with, in particular, redundancy, unfair dismissal and insolvency. We are in close touch with key stakeholders on this issue. So these measures benefit employees in a very direct way, but they will also benefit business and the labour market as a whole.
	We have consulted widely on the Bill. As well as a formal consultation launched in February last year, we have had, and continue to have, discussions with key stakeholders. We worked with an advisory group of human resource experts, set up specifically to look at how we could introduce these changes while easing the administration for employers. We were clear from the start that we wanted to establish a framework of rights and responsibilities for both employers and employees in line with the Government's better regulation agenda.
	We have listened and have responded to what we have heard. For example, the measures I outlined earlier to ease the administration of leave and pay are a direct result of what we have heard. We will be working with the Equal Opportunities Commission and other stakeholders to develop their idea of a "written statement" of employer and employee rights and responsibilities in connection with maternity leave as well as guidance on what "reasonable contact" means so that the law is clear to everyone affected. We are targeting the extension of the right to request flexible working to carers only to make it more manageable for business.
	This approach has allowed us to bring forward a Bill which has the broad support of both employees and employers. There are, of course, those who want us to go further and others who say that we have gone too far, but I believe we have struck the right balance and we will continue dialogue with stakeholders as we take the Bill forward.
	There are concerns from some business organisations that we are not going ahead with a direct payment scheme, which we committed to consider as one of the ways of easing the administration of leave and pay. After careful consideration we concluded that the costs of such a scheme would be out of all proportion to the benefits accruing, representing neither good value for money for the taxpayer nor a significant saving for employers. For a direct payment scheme to work properly there would need to be a potentially complex two-way information exchange, which could impose new burdens on business. While employers would no longer need to calculate SMP and make payments—costs estimated to be around £3 million per year—they would still have to make employers' earnings-based contributions and periodical returns on top of managing the information exchange. This would cost employers nearly £2 million in time costs, leaving an estimated net benefit for employers of around £1 million per year only. Analysis showed that about £400,000 only of this benefit would accrue to small employers.
	For the Government, direct payment would involve not just taking over the tasks removed from employers but also providing the information exchange mechanism to support employers with their remaining and new tasks. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs would have to create a highly complex new IT system and this, plus the information exchange mechanism, would need to be linked internally to employee data systems and externally to those of employers via a secure route. Payroll experts believe that errors would be inevitable, driving up the costs for government as well as impacting on employees and employers. As a result, costs for the Government are estimated to be around £75 million in set-up costs and around £50 million in annual running costs. Given the figure of employer benefits, it does not represent good value for money for the taxpayer or a significant saving for employers.
	During the consultation, we heard that employers would welcome further practical support. As well as easing administration for employers, HM Revenue and Customs is this year eliminating the need for any employer to calculate statutory maternity pay and other such payments manually by a mixture of free electronic calculators and a helpline service that will do the calculations and follow up with prompt written confirmation.
	Noble Lords will doubtless closely scrutinise the delegated powers in the Bill. The bulk of the provisions, including powers relating to additional paternity leave and pay, some of the maternity and adoption leave measures, annual leave, and the one-off power relating to redundancy powers, require regulations to be made by affirmative resolution, so noble Lords will have ample opportunity to examine and debate them. In the case of regulations relating to maternity and adoption leave and flexible working, draft regulations are already in the public domain. Consultation on additional paternity leave and pay will be launched shortly.
	I look forward to hearing noble Lords' thoughts and comments on the Bill. I am sure that many valuable contributions will be made when they come to scrutinise it in Committee. We have consulted widely on the Bill, and we will listen carefully to any arguments put forward for change. It is not a radical Bill, but it has the potential to make a real difference to the lives of working people in this country. I commend the Bill to the House.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Sainsbury of Turville.)

Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clear explanation of the Bill and for the Explanatory Notes, which are as helpful as usual. However, I confess that while totally accepting the family-friendly ethos of the Bill—and I assure the Minister that we do—we nevertheless will be expecting some clarification that the Explanatory Notes have not achieved for us. That is quite unusual, but some things need to be cleared up.
	My noble friend Lady Morris of Bolton and I will be working together on the Bill. I will be dealing with Department of Trade and Industry matters; while my noble friend, with her great experience in family matters, will be dealing with those issues. As my honourable friend the Member for Maidenhead told the other place on Second Reading,
	"we agree with many of the aims of this Bill".—[Official Report, Commons, 5/12/05; col. 652.]
	Equally, however, we are surprised to find ourselves agreeing with the Trades Union Congress which, in its brief document said:
	"The TUC does have some concerns about the new legislation, and in particular . . . its vagueness, which leaves too much detail to regulation".
	I emphasise that last point.
	The Bill has only 20 clauses; it is a short Bill. Seven of the clauses—Clauses 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 13—include the words:
	"The Secretary of State may make regulations".
	The Minister talked about consulting widely on the regulations. The truth is that when this Bill went through the other place, it had not seen the regulations at all; it is a short Bill, and only half the draft regulations are out now. It is hard when you have to deal with a Bill and in due course pass it through this House and you do not know all the detail of what it is that you are talking about; in fact you do not know much of the detail at all.
	In Clause 14, which the Minister mentioned, there is a special one-off power to regulate, which I will come back to. In view of the length of the Bill and the high proportion of clauses that are dependent on regulation, my noble friends and I hope that the Government will be more receptive than they usually are to any amendments that we table, bearing in mind that they will, as ever, be designed purely to improve a Bill whose objectives are supported all around the House. It is the methodology that causes the problems. As the Secretary of State in introducing the Bill said to the other place, and as the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, said here, it has four main parts: extending paid maternity and adoption leave; extending the right to flexible working to carers of adults; helping fathers to play more of a role in the upbringing of their children; and making it easier for employers to administer the rights that are created by the Bill. It is in that latter respect that I regret to say the Government have failed—I refer only to small businesses.
	The reduction of the burden on employers of administering statutory maternity pay by returning it to the Inland Revenue was originally part of the package offered by the Government to secure the support of the CBI. But after that suggestion was made, the Government resiled from it. Will the Minister say why? The Minister gave a long explanation in his introduction, but having read the figures discussed in the other place, it is extraordinary that it costs so little for small businesses to have to do their own administration, but would cost so much for this clever Government to take that on board. We will explore that in Committee.
	The effect of that unilateral change of heart was that the CBI said it could no longer support the Bill as it stands. It roundly condemned the Government for failing the first test of the commitment to better regulation that they claimed to have, and their failure to compensate employers by better support. We are on the side of the CBI in this matter. My honourable friend the Member for Epping Forest told the other place on Report:
	"It is not just a question of who pays; it is a question of who administers the regulations".—[Official Report, Commons, 18/1/06; col. 855.]
	That is the problem for small businesses. Some 95 per cent of small employers have five employees or fewer. They will regard as a sort of joke the offer of a CD-ROM to help them calculate statutory maternity pay as they lock themselves in their front rooms on a Sunday afternoon, struggling to cope with PAYE, national insurance returns, VAT and whatever other regulatory returns affect their businesses. I know that particular story from personal experience in my own household. CD-ROMs, advice and helplines are all very well, but small businesses have to fight hard today. They do not have personnel departments; they do not have people to work such things out; and the more regulation you put on them, the more difficult their position becomes. Therefore, we will introduce probing amendments to look at that issue.
	The introduction of the novel concept of additional paternity leave will also create horrendous complexities when two separate employers are involved. But that is not the only legislative complication that employers will face. Clause 3 enables the Secretary of State to nominate certain persons to be the beneficiaries of part of the mother's entitlement to maternity leave. The question is: who is the father? Is it the biological father, or the man who the mother is living with at the time the child is born, or the man who the mother takes up with soon after the child is born, or even a lady with whom the mother enters into a relationship during pregnancy or after the birth, and who she would be living with and would like to have that entitlement to time off work?
	Regarding the same complication, how will the employer of the person claiming that additional leave know who is entitled to it? The Government, with the best of intentions are creating a legislative nightmare and we shall certainly require clarification from the Minister before the next stage, so that the issue can be settled by primary legislation, rather than that this complicated issue should be the subject of a blank cheque—a regulation that will come.
	How will employers know that two different men are not both claiming that right? The fact is that since 1997 there has been a 53 per cent increase in the regulatory impact on business, at a cost of £14 billion per annum. Some 97 per cent of all enterprises are classified as "small", which means, if my mathematics is correct, that an additional cost of £13.5 billion will fall on small enterprises. The cost to individual firms may be less than the Government spend on paperclips in a week, but for a trader struggling to pay his rates or to find the money to pay wages on a Friday, it is yet another crushing, back-breaking straw.
	There is another rather curious aspect to the Bill. My noble friend Lady Morris and I were surprised by the inclusion of Clauses 13 and 14. They make far-reaching changes in general employment law which are nothing to do with families. They do not seem to be part of the general purpose of the Bill but have the appearance of something tacked on to take advantage of a legislative slot. The purpose of the Bill, as described in the introductory paragraph, is to,
	"Make provision about statutory rights to leave and pay in connection with the birth or adoption of children",
	and so on. As a sort of afterthought, it continues that the purpose is—I paraphrase—to provide increases in annual leave and redundancy pay. I suspect that the inclusion of the word "work" in the title of the Bill is to justify the inclusion of these two totally unconnected provisions.
	Clause 13 piles another burden on the back of business. The clause is one of the longest in a very brief Bill. It gives the Secretary of State sweeping power by ministerial decree to prescribe the amount of paid annual leave and to permit employees to decide when they will take it, irrespective of the requirements of the business. We already have a requirement for four weeks' paid holiday a year. Now that is being redefined by discounting the statutory bank holidays from the calculation, of which there are eight in England and Wales.
	Now we are to move from four weeks' paid annual holiday to four weeks plus eight extra working days, and someone will have to pay for that. The question is: who? I am afraid that in the case of tiny corner shops trying to compete against giant supermarkets, and small manufacturers trying to compete against Chinese and Indian businesses, which are untroubled by such burdens, that "someone" will be the employers, who will find it increasingly difficult to remain open for business. That is not just my personal opinion; it is also the view expressed by the CBI. As we know, the CBI is usually more concerned with big businesses as most of the businesses attached to it are big, but here it is small businesses that would be hurt. The CBI briefing suggested to us that, if this is to happen, the extra days should be phased in—two one year, and so on—so that small businesses have a chance to get used to the arrangement.
	Clause 14 enables the Secretary of State to adjust the calculation of salary for the purpose of determining the amount of redundancy pay which an employer—presumably already in financial difficulties if we are talking about redundancy pay—will be obliged to pay. Since the introduction of the concept in 1965, redundancy pay has been based on a formula related to age and length of service. These new provisions will enable the Secretary of State to use virtually any formula that he chooses, including, I suppose, extraneous matters, such as the formulae used elsewhere in the EC or even, not to be too frivolous, golden handshakes given to sacked football managers.
	The Secretary of State seeks power to invoke that provision only once. Why am I not impressed by this feat of seeming self-denial? First, because the temptation will be to include in the new formula a truly swingeing increase on the grounds that it is a one-off. We are aware that the unions are seeking an increase from the current figure in the formula of £290 a week, which is subject to normal indexation, to a staggering £400 to £500 a week, or that they would even like it to be increased by 100 per cent to just under £600 a week—about £580. I believe that before the Government ask your Lordships to sign this blank cheque, the Minister should tell us today precisely what figure they have in mind for the new power that they are going to put into Clause 14. If, as I suspect, he says that nothing has been decided yet, perhaps he would care to disclose the representations they are currently being asked to consider.
	Secondly, once the precedent has been set, the Secretary of State will be able to have several more bites of the cherry by slipping in another similar clause as a miscellaneous provision in some later Bill. The Minister should tell the House—I hope he will—the reason behind this violent change to a formula that has worked perfectly well for over 40 years. I believe—in fact I am practically certain—that it was part of the so-called Warwick agreement, negotiated between the Government and the TUC before the last election to secure union support for other aspects of the Government's manifesto. Your Lordships should note that this very important provision was not debated at all in Committee in the other place, so we are raising it now for the first time, although the Minister mentioned it in his introduction but not with the detail that I have given it. I expect that this House will want to examine the full ramifications in some detail.
	On another subject, both the CBI and the Engineering Employers Federation are very concerned about what the CBI calls the in-touch days. These enable an employee on maternity leave occasionally to continue to work on her employer's behalf. At the moment one day's attendance costs a whole week's benefit, which is manifestly nonsense as well as being grossly unfair to both sides. Keeping in touch in that way is beneficial to both employer and employee. As the British Chamber of Commerce points out, it enables an employer to be sure of an employee's future intention about returning to work, which is very helpful for a business. We wish to ensure that employees who take that very responsible attitude to keeping in touch with their employers during maternity leave are not penalised for doing so and employers are not accused of harassing such employees when they maintain contact at such a time.
	Some aspects of maternity leave and additional maternity leave are currently enshrined in secondary legislation, which causes employers some concern. As there was no opportunity to amend those aspects during the passage of the regulations, we shall ask the Minister to clarify them during their passage through this House.
	Earlier I referred to the inclusion of the anomalous Clauses 13 and 14 as curious. In my opinion, they are out of place in a Bill whose many other provisions in Clauses 1 to 12 are mainly related to maternity and paternity leave and pay. Those two clauses are described as "miscellaneous provisions", which are just slipped into other Bills in the expectation that they will not excite too much interest. These two clauses are part of what happens when one continues to put little bits at a time into Bills until one finds that altogether they make quite a big difference.
	The CBI has pointed out, for example, that the new additional paternity leave is a stepping stone to compel employers to match occupational paternity pay with maternity pay. I do not know about that, but we shall certainly want to probe that with the Minister. This drip-by-drip tactic is illustrated by the fact that any of the provisions of the Bill could just as easily have been incorporated in the Employment Relations Act 2004.
	A final matter of concern is that while I am glad to see that the regulations, which the Government will promulgate under Clauses 13 and 14, will be subject to the affirmative approval procedure, it is proposed that those under Clauses 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 12 will not be. In introducing the Bill the Minister said that they would be. If they are not, that would be contrary to the assurances given by the Government at Second Reading in the other place. I say that because the Minister in the other place was asked whether they were affirmative or negative. He was sure that they were affirmative, which is why I said that was an undertaking to which the Minister has a duty. But the way in which those regulations are drafted does not say that they are affirmative, and one cannot assume that they all are; three which definitely are have got "affirmative" written after them. When the Bill came to us, it should have said that it was affirmative to make this absolutely certain, which is why I want that clarified as well.
	This Bill is an enabling Bill: a Bill in which, as even its allies in the TUC point out, the,
	"Devil will be in the detail . . . the new legislation . . . leaves too much detail to regulation that can easily be amended".
	It is totally wrong that major legislation, such as that contained in this Bill, should be buried away in secondary legislation that cannot be amended. The Minister knows that I feel strongly about this. To have a Bill with 20 clauses, with the number I pointed out earlier all being regulation, is wrong. It should not happen. We will seek to rectify this shortcoming in Committee.
	I repeat what I said in my opening remarks: we certainly support the principles of the Bill. Like other Members of this House, we just to want to make it that little bit better.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this Bill. We on these Benches welcome its provisions since they go some way to developing a change in the UK's working culture that recognises children's well-being as an important and relevant consideration in public policy. We want to see all workers, but particularly parents, having real choices about their working arrangements, such that they can improve their work/life balance and spend more time with their children. This is also for the good of the country, our economy and the development of peaceful, crime-free communities, since the input of good parenting is vital if children are to grow up responsible and productive members of society.
	We particularly welcome the extension of the ability to ask for flexible working to carers, but the Government should have been bolder. Like the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, we see no good reason why this right should not be extended to all genuine carers, subject to proof of their caring responsibilities. Providing care in the public sector is always more expensive and less satisfactory than providing the care that comes from a loving relationship in the patient's own, or a family, home. Why, then, limit it as the Government have?
	We welcome the measures to extend maternity leave to 39, and eventually 52, weeks, and to extend the rights of fathers and husbands or partners, but strongly believe that, to provide a real choice for working families, the amount of maternity or paternity pay needs to be increased. We also believe we should move towards an earnings-related situation, in order to encourage more parents to take it up—parents like Mr David Cameron, the Leader of the Opposition in the Commons, whom I congratulate on the birth of his son today. After all, the current rate is only £106 per week, while the average weekly wage for men is £505. Most families cannot afford such a sacrifice, so it is unsurprising that the take-up of paternity leave is so low.
	At the general election, the Liberal Democrat manifesto made a maternity income guarantee, based on the minimum wage for a 35-hour week, to begin to address this problem. It amounted to £170 per week for the first six months, for the first baby. This was only a start compared to what we would like to do. We note that, according to the Equal Opportunities Commission, only 28 per cent of fathers say that they would take up their entitlement at the current level, but 80 per cent say that they would do so if it went up to £200 per week. That is something to which all parties should clearly aspire. In the mean time, we support the extension to nine, and eventually 12, months maternity leave.
	However, we are concerned at the inflexibility and grossly disproportionate notice period of the paternity paid leave regulations. It seems wrong that, for a short period of one or two weeks, a father has to give the same 15-week notice as the expectant mother. When the notice period for statutory annual leave of a period of one or two weeks is only two weeks—presumably because it is deemed that this gives the employer sufficient time to make alternative arrangements—it seems ridiculous to require 15 weeks just because of the specific reason for the leave.
	Many lower-paid men are unaware of this regulation and so lose out on their right to ordinary paternity leave. That is why I agree with the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux that much more benefit would be gained by families if the Government enhanced the existing right to ordinary paternity leave as well as, or instead of, the new additional paternity leave.
	We welcome the move to allow fathers, in effect, to take up some of the mother's leave entitlement, if she returns to work, in the form of additional paternity leave. That has long been Liberal Democrat policy, though we would quarrel with the Government's restriction of this to a period beyond the first few months after the baby's birth. Fathers need to bond too, and we believe that it should be up to the parents to choose how to distribute the leave entitlement between the two of them.
	At least four out of 10 new fathers would not benefit at all from this arrangement since the mother has not worked prior to the birth. His entitlement is entirely dependent on hers. For couples in this situation, mothers are locked into their role as full-time carer and fathers are locked into the breadwinner role. Surely, in this day and age, public policy should not do something like that. It is another good reason for extending the ordinary paternity leave to four weeks and allowing it to be taken in single weeks, if required. I note that the Government have predicted a negligible take-up of just 1 per cent, and no wonder. These arrangements, well-meaning though they are, are simply not good enough to benefit most families.
	I do, however, very much welcome the fact that the Government now give the same entitlements to adoptive parents as to birth parents. For those children for whom staying with their birth family is not an option, the model of care which is by far the best, where possible, is adoption. Children need a secure family for the long term. Fostering can be an excellent option and, of course, is the best answer where the need is temporary. I have the most enormous respect for foster parents, who deserve better than we give them. However, in providing a permanent family for a child in need, adoptive parents do a great service to society as well as to the child. They deserve our great thanks and admiration and as much help as we can possibly give them.
	I move now to say something about the right to ask for flexible working for parents. This is an area where the Bill has missed an opportunity. The need to have working arrangements to suit the children does not end at the age of six, and I strongly believe that it should be available to parents of all children, at least of statutory school age, if not 18. Parents in this country work very long and often unsocial hours, and it is the children who suffer. According to a presentation I heard recently from the Relationships Foundation, in nine out of 10 two-parent families, someone is working unsocial hours and three-quarters of those do not do it out of choice; four out of 10 parents of dependent children work regularly at weekends; 400,000 parents both work Saturdays and Sundays; and 47 per cent of parents are unhappy with their work/life balance.
	Parenting is rightly high on the public policy agenda. The Government are taking some action on this through the respect action plan, parenting orders and other initiatives. There is strong evidence that parental input has a major effect on educational attainment and behaviour. All authorities, including the Government I think, are agreed that preventive measures need a stronger role in public policy when it comes to dealing with children and young people who are failing to reach their own best potential or even falling into the criminal justice system. Why then have the Government failed to take the opportunity presented by this Bill to extend to all parents the right to ask for flexible working?
	I can hardly believe it is the business community that has deterred them, given the many benefits of treating employees like human beings. Let me give noble Lords one shining example of how well this can work. Farrelly Facilities and Engineering is a manufacturing company in the West Midlands, supplying design, installation and maintenance of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems. While the construction industry is often synonymous with long hours and a high turnover of staff, Farrelly has set a priority on work/life balance that has not only benefited its employees but also increased its sales and profits.
	In 1998, Gerry and John Farrelly decided that the focus of the firm needed to switch from profits to people. Gerry states:
	"Although we were paying our people good money and good benefits, we were not focusing on them as individuals, with individual requirements. For example, one might have two young children and another might have older children, creating different demands on their home life".
	The first step was to reduce working hours from the norm of 50 to 60 down to 37. Further family-friendly policies were also introduced, such as opportunities to take time for children's medical treatment and flexibility around child care and school arrangements. They said:
	"If someone has to work on a Sunday then they definitely wouldn't have to work on the Saturday, maybe not even the Friday before. We try to empower people to look after their own time".
	Since implementing those policies, staff retention has improved dramatically; sickness absence has virtually reduced to zero; customer complaints are rare; and the turnover has increased from £2 million to £8 million. Because the staff are treated well, they treat their customers well. Not only are they less stressed, they are also more motivated to work well and get the job right the first time. The result, in one typical case, is that maintenance call-outs have dropped by 80 per cent.
	The upcoming education Bill following the recent schools White Paper is expected to say that, when a child is excluded from school, the parent must be responsible for keeping them at home for the first five days. Of course, I would maintain that, in a system of managed exclusions, alternative provision should be made immediately. However, given the current system, how can the Government justify that if they do not at the same time provide a statutory framework that allows parents to ask their employers for flexible working to enable them to manage such a situation?
	It is also right to propose that an independent tribunal should be set up to look into cases where an employer has refused flexible working for no good reason. While on the subject of compliance and enforcement, may I put in a word about the need to ensure that workers get their current statutory rights, let alone the extended ones in the Bill? According to the NACAB, for many low income families the daily juggling of their caring and working commitments is less a case of enjoying a good work/life balance than of enduring a work/life compromise. The legal protection offered to many workers by the employment tribunal system is rendered meaningless by the inaccessibility of that system or the worker's fear of victimisation or dismissal, even for raising the subject of their statutory rights with their employer. The Government's strategy in relation to workplace rights must include steps to ensure more universal compliance by small employers and more pro-active enforcement measures against rogue employers.

The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham: My Lords, it is a privilege to welcome the overarching aim of the Bill—to ensure that care givers in our society can better balance their home and work commitments. As a report of the Church of England on the family in 1995 states:
	"The modern view of the family is sometimes dominated by economic concerns, according to which the home is either an escape from work or a base from which people do other work or go out to work. The Christian understanding"—
	indeed, the Judaeo-Christian understanding—
	"is different. The role of the family is not, in the first instance, to produce workers. Rather the role of the family is to produce healthy, mature and creative human beings".
	Parents and carers play a fundamental role in society through the nurturing of family members—a role that should be valued and actively affirmed. The Bill makes strides to do exactly that. Provisions that must be especially applauded include the extension of maternity leave to one year, as noble Lords have mentioned, and the possibility for fathers to take additional paternity leave if their partner returns to work.
	This recognition that fathers, like mothers, need time to bond with their baby will reinforce the growing understanding that child rearing is not solely the responsibility of the mother. By enabling mothers and fathers to balance their work and caring responsibilities between them, they, their children and, indeed, wider society, will undoubtedly benefit.
	I strongly support the Government's intention to extend that right to carers. Many of the approximately 4 million carers of working age in the United Kingdom struggle to balance their work and caring roles. Some are forced to give up work altogether. The new right will make it possible for carers—for whom I urge as wide a definition as possible to be applied—to spend the time that they need to with people who rely on them for care, and also to stay in work. However, I must take the opportunity to express my concerns that despite these generous leave extensions, many parents may be unable to take them up. It is important when discussing work and families to consider the real choices that people have. A female home worker living on little money is unlikely to be able to make a real choice about whether to take time off when her income is all that keeps the family from living in poverty. A man who is in an unstable position at work, say in an area of high unemployment, is unlikely to ask for time off to look after a new child in case his job is threatened.
	The Bill needs to address the concerns of families at all income levels. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, pointed out, the low level of statutory pay currently stands at £106 a week—much lower than a week's pay on the national minimum wage. Research shows that seven in 10 mothers returned to work during their leave period for financial reasons. Yet only one of them would say that she was ready or wanted to do so. In addition, fathers whose partners do not work before pregnancy or who do not want to go back to work will not be entitled to additional paternity leave. Statistics show that four in 10 new mothers are not in paid work before the birth of their child. These two factors limit the choice of families and could undermine the commendable provisions for new parents that the Government are introducing in the Bill.
	Taking into consideration the overwhelming support for the right to request for carers, it seems to me that the scope of such a right has the potential to go much further. Many people have been disappointed that the Bill does not extend the right to request to parents of older children and teenagers. Indeed, the Mothers' Union, which has a constituency of 120,000 people in the United Kingdom who were widely consulted on the Bill, particularly supports this idea. One Mothers' Union member wrote:
	"All children are in need of support from and quality time with their parents. Older children warrant their parents' support as much as small children and babies, if not more. Whereas a baby or a small child tends to adapt easily to being cared for by new people, the same cannot be said for teenagers who are experiencing transitional difficulties such as puberty, changing from childhood to adulthood, changing from primary to secondary schools, trying to find out and understand their own identity".
	It strikes me that to extend the right to request flexible working to parents of teenagers would, to echo a previous speaker, be in keeping with the recently published Respect Action Plan, particularly in the light of the new obligation on parents to take more responsibility for the behaviour of their children and to act in a supervisory capacity for a defined period during an exclusion from school.
	Parents should have the option to change their working lives in favour of their children's welfare if the need arises. I would argue that the right to request flexible working arrangements for parents of children and young people up to 18 is essential for this. Again, I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said in support of this.
	In conclusion, if one thing could be done to enhance this imaginative and innovative Bill, I would urge that all parents, regardless of the age of their children, should be able to request flexible working hours if this is what their family needs.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, as an advocate of some years' standing for equal opportunities in the workplace, I am sure the House will not be surprised to learn that I very largely support the Government's Work and Families Bill. This Bill, in tandem with the Childcare Bill, which we will no doubt see later, sets out the next steps towards creating the more genuinely equal-opportunity and family-friendly workplace that we saw developed in the Government's 2004 report, Choice for parents, the best start for children: a ten year strategy for childcare.
	Thus, in addition to the laudable number of family-friendly measures already introduced by this Government, these Bills will help to provide the essential flexibility and encouragement that women, and increasingly men, must have if they are to balance successfully the equally important demands of family and career.
	It is, alas, all too self-evident that women and mothers, much more than men and fathers, are still seen, and see themselves, as the primary carers of young children. By placing a duty on local authorities to see that there is sufficient and flexible childcare provision in each local area, it will at least initially be women—currently the substantially disadvantaged half of the working population—who will benefit from this legislation.
	By providing for an increase in the period of statutory maternity pay and leave to 39 weeks by April 2007 and to 52 weeks by the end of the Parliament, the Government's provisions can be seen as especially important for improving the likelihood of women continuing their careers. In maintaining the inclusion of women in the workforce, we not only increase the potential overall productivity of the economy, we also reduce recruitment and training costs that would inevitably be incurred by employers if these women were to leave the workforce and had to be replaced. As your Lordships will know, these costs have increased considerably as women tend to have babies much later, having previously acquired skills and experience that is costly for employers to replace.
	Moreover, I would argue that introducing the opportunity for a transfer of a proportion of paid maternity leave to the father is also a step in the right direction for equal opportunities. As the EOC points out on this and other issues, the younger the parents, the more likely they are to support measures which recognise that women and men's lives are becoming more alike in terms of their need to balance work and family. As the right reverend Prelate has pointed out, more and more fathers want to play a more active role in the family and have time to enjoy their children, as well as accepting their practical and financial responsibilities in helping to bring up the next generation as thoroughly responsible citizens.
	Of course, we have not yet reached what I would call an ideal situation, where availability of family leave or flexible working is seen as equally applicable to either sex and automatically built into the way in which employers organise work patterns. But, nevertheless, these steps, and the encouragement to employers to agree to keep-in-touch days with those on parental leave, are further steps in the right direction, for which the Government deserve considerable credit.
	There is another important reason to encourage women as well as men to remain in the workforce. The recent Turner report has drawn our attention to the impending pensions' crisis that Britain will face with an increasing ageing population. If women are encouraged to maintain their careers, they will be able to continue contributing to their pensions, rather than, as now, facing an inadequate pension on retirement due to an interrupted career from having taken time out to have children.
	However, much as I commend the thrust of this Bill, I have in mind, like other noble Lords, the CBI's withdrawal of its initial support for the Bill and the quite substantial chorus of complaints, particularly from the SMEs, at the growing complexity of the law which appears to be necessary to spell out these benefits—for example, the provision for sharing between parents of a new-born child their rights to parental leave and parental pay.
	Your Lordships have already had the complexity of a number of the Bill's clauses pointed out. The primary legislation for this single innovation, without providing for adoptions—an equally important and welcome provision but inevitably another complexity—occupies five pages of the Bill, spelt out in almost three dozen paragraphs. The regulations, yet to come, will need to be very extensive. We are glad to hear from the Minister that there will be plenty of consultation. That is no wonder, because not just two parents will be involved. In most cases, there will be two employers as well, both of whom will need to be satisfied on whether each parent is off work at the times claimed. They will also need to be satisfied on the legitimacy—even perhaps the existence—of the child.
	I hope that the Minister will be able to give the House some very positive reassurance on these matters. Will every effort be made to produce clear and intelligible regulations and, even more important, clear guidance notes for employers as well as employees? Lastly on this point, can the Minister assure us that small businesses in particular will be adequately supported and duly reimbursed for their efforts in administering the scheme? There seems to have been some backtracking on what was originally promised.
	I turn to my final points on carers. The Government are indeed to be congratulated on their decision to give all carers, those who take responsibility for disabled or elderly family members or friends, the right to ask their employers for flexible working. This is an enormously important step towards equal opportunities for a strongly disadvantaged group. Carers are an oft-forgotten sector of society, but by no means an insignificant one. I am glad to say that some employers are already offering flexible working to carers. Businesses such as BP, Centrica, Listawood and HSBC already appreciate and are acting upon the strong business case for giving carers this important option. Moreover, helping carers in this way produces positive returns for the economy in the form of reduced absenteeism and increased productivity, and from retaining carers' knowledge and skills. Meanwhile, carers themselves are able to continue with their unpaid caring work. Employers will also benefit greatly from these cost savings by increasing staff loyalty and widening the skills available to them.
	Of the estimated 6 million carers in the UK, some 3 million are working. With an increasing ageing population, not only will Britain need 60 per cent more carers over the next 35 to 40 years, but also 2.5 million more people in the workforce over the next eight years. Evidence suggests that the right to request flexible working would encourage more carers to enter paid employment. Non-employed carers inevitably impose a substantial burden on the economy in terms of lost tax and national insurance revenue, and additional costs in terms of benefits and pension costs. But add to that what the cost would be to the state if carers were no longer willing or able to perform their caring role, the benefit of extending such a right to carers really becomes irresistible. It is estimated that the unpaid work undertaken by carers and parents is worth around £277 billion.
	Finally, for the reasons I have already advanced, I hope the Minister can reassure us that the definition of "carer", along with any other definition, will be clear and simple, and as inclusive as possible. Perhaps it could also include the parents of children eventually up to school leaving age so that all possible relationships that carers might have with the people they care for are covered. Further, caring responsibilities almost certainly become more onerous over time, and one request for flexible working per year may not in fact be adequate if circumstances change.
	The Work and Families Bill is a substantial step in the right direction for equal opportunities for both sexes, as well as opportunities for more continuous careers for women. For carers it provides, at last, some recognition of the invaluable role they play in all our lives. And for employers, whose co-operation will be essential if these blessings are to be sure to arrive, as simple a scheme as possible is absolutely essential.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I support this important Bill and welcome it as treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children and vice-chair of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Children and Young People In Care and Leaving Care. I have worked with and visited many young people who have had the worst of starts. I have also worked with an adopted child just as he embarked on the first few days of his adoptive placement. I therefore warmly welcome much of the Bill before us. I was excited to learn that the Government were extending paid maternity leave to 12 months. I have been looking forward to this day.
	I welcome the Bill because I am confident that it will mean that more of our children will be healthier and safer. More of them will enjoy their childhood and their life; they will achieve better at school; they will make a better contribution to their community. More of them will achieve full adult independence. Fewer will experience poverty in their childhood; fewer will experience abuse.
	The first year of a child's life is critical and its relationship with its parents, which gives it a good start, is crucial. I am pleased that the Government's Choice for parents, the best start for children: a ten year strategy for childcare highlighted:
	"Early childhood is a time of vital importance in children's development. It is widely known that the quality of care that children receive in their early years makes a real difference to their development and later outcomes".
	The Bill fits very well with government policy and legislation elsewhere for children and families. The Government have recently introduced the first Children's Commissioner for England. They have focused on improving outcomes for children in their Every Child Matters agenda and legislated on this matter in the Children Act 2004.
	The Government's national service framework for children is an invaluable measure for ensuring that our health service becomes more child-centred. In particular, the measures and aspirations for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services are very welcome. The Government have significantly increased investment in schools and health, and of course that is of significant benefit to children.
	I remember Lord Chan, who I wish was here today, and how enthusiastic he was about the new children's trusts and the development of primary care trusts. He knew these issues well, as a paediatrician and as a pillar of the Chinese community in Liverpool.
	Yesterday morning I spoke with a child psychotherapist working in a Sure Start centre. He was going to meet a mother of a child six months old. The mother had been a drug addict but the child was doing very well. The psychotherapist was enthusing about the impact of Sure Start and how it has helped parents to enjoy their children. He talked about baby massage—such a good way of promoting a good relationship in the first months—and "bumps and babies" groups which enable people who are about to become parents to be aware of what happens once a child is born.
	I strongly support the thrust of this legislation, in part because of my own family experience. I well remember how distraught my cousin was when she had to return to work far too soon after the birth of her son. I have discussed with my mother the circumstances when I was born. Shortly afterwards, we moved into a new home. It needed much work to be done and my mother rather felt as if the builders were living with us for several months after my birth. Shortly after my birth, my four year-old half sister arrived in the family. Within 18 months my sister was born and 14 months after that my brother was born. My mother's family lived a long way from London, our home, and her joy at our birth could not be unalloyed. She must sometimes have felt that a group of insatiable apes had descended upon her. Fortunately, she had my father to support her and was in a good financial position. She also had tremendous energy and resources to draw on. That experience leads me to reflect on how important it is to support families, especially those with young children, if we wish to see their children succeed and thrive.
	I shall comment briefly on adoptive parents receiving support. The Government have set clear targets for increasing the rate of adoption. I welcome this, but it has meant that elder children who have undergone longer periods of trauma are being adopted. Although some extra support is available, it is not sufficient to help them settle in well all the time. So I welcome this measure as being timely in supporting adoptive parents. I hope that we may go further in developing this support during the passage of the Bill.
	I welcome also the signal that this legislation gives. Obstetricians express concern that prospective parents assume that one can somehow have a baby and go straight back into work. That is perhaps not surprising. We live in a stratified society and are no longer aware of the bringing-up of our cousins. In my case, my sister lives in Australia and my half-sister lives in Canada, so I do not get to see my nephews and nieces. I do not have the experience of helping to bring up these children. It is common nowadays for parents not to have experience of bringing up children in their family. It is a new experience to many of them and they do not quite know what to expect. So I welcome the signal that the Bill gives.
	I noted what the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, said about business concerns. I wonder whether there is any danger that businesses might—I regret to say it—discriminate against women if they feel that they are not properly supported, or even if they perceive that they are not going to be properly supported. If this were the case, it might work against the Government's policy of reducing child poverty.
	I have some concern also about day care for children under the age of 12 months. I know that there is good provision in some areas, but, realistically speaking, the capacity is limited. Sadly, the workforce often comprises poorly paid, poorly educated young women. Many vulnerable young people that I have met and worked with have wanted to go into the childcare arena. If one has had a poor start in life oneself, it may become quite difficult to care for other children. There is a generational aspect to this. So I welcome also the balance that this Bill gives in providing parents with more choice to care for their children at home, especially when there is a shortage of day care capacity.
	I look forward to working on this Bill. It takes an important step forward in improving outcomes for children.

Lord Northbourne: My Lords, when this Government came to power in 1997, they recognised to their great credit the changes which are taking place in our society. They recognised also that these changes must be reconciled with the child's need for attachment and secure, loving relationships—my noble friend Lord Listowel has just referred to them—particularly in the first months and years of his life.
	Since 1997, a great deal more good research has confirmed the importance of these early relationships. A secure, loving relationship with both parents, and the extended family where possible, is a good omen for a child's future: for his doing well in school and for his success in later life. This Bill takes forward the Government's policy in this area by helping and enabling parents as far as possible to reconcile those demands, and for that reason I strongly support the Bill, but I have two points that I should like to discuss.
	The first point relates to key employees in small businesses. There has been a lot of discussion this afternoon about the effect of these provisions on employers and there has been talk of small businesses, but I want to stress the role of key employees in small businesses, such as the only accountant or salesman in the business. When that person goes away for six months, it is very difficult and expensive to find someone even to fill the gap; it is hugely difficult or impossible to replace the personal contacts that that person has, whether with clients, suppliers or staff, or the personal knowledge of the business, which enables them to produce satisfactory budgets to convince their colleagues of the financial exigencies, and so forth.
	Several noble Lords have mentioned that 97 per cent of this country's businesses are small businesses but, in the Work and Families Bill research paper, the figure is 99 per cent. It also mentioned that more than one-third of the country's workforce is employed by these small businesses, so we would be very foolish if we ignored the danger of destroying small businesses. In the process of making arrangements that are satisfactory to parents, we must not destroy businesses because, if we do, we shall destroy employment. The role of employers is to provide employment.
	In the context of what I have just said, can the Minister give an assurance that the regulations that the Government propose under Clause 3(7)(c), (d) and (e) and Clause 12 in relation to part-time working will enable an employer faced with the prospect of a long absence by a key member of his staff to have the right to insist that that person at least comes in for a few hours a week or on some other agreed basis to retain personal contacts and to contribute to decisions that need strategic knowledge of the business? In that context, would the Government consider introducing a category of worker in small businesses who might be designated a key employee—someone like the only accountant or salesman in the business—so that when they sign up and take on the job they accept that they are a key employee and may have to accept special terms and conditions for leave?
	My second point relates to the proposals in the Bill for additional paternity leave. There is general agreement among experts and professionals that it is in the best interests of the child to bond at an early age with their father as well as their mother. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, commented on that. That is particularly important in our society today, when we have the prospect that more than 50 per cent of children will see their parents' partnership break up during their minority. When that happens, a good basic attachment to both parents is so often the key to the child's emotional survival. The Bill as drafted gives very limited rights to the father to take time off over and above the normal two weeks' paternity leave. Two weeks' paternity leave in the first two weeks of the child's life gives jolly little opportunity for the man to bond with the child. Unless the mother decides that she wants to return to work and wants the father to take over the caring role, the father has no other opportunity to take leave for that purpose. That is not satisfactory and, in my view, it is not fair on the child.
	My point is that the ability to bond early with the child has favourable results right the way through the life of the family together. I give an example from Scandinavia. In Norway, there was, until 1993, well paid parental leave available to either parent, but use by fathers was less than 4 per cent. That is the situation that we shall be in if this Bill goes through in its present form. In 1993, one month of this parental leave was made available for use by fathers only, which was matched by a month of parental leave solely available for mothers. In 1994, use by fathers of parental leave was 40 per cent; by 1998, it was 80 per cent. In other words, the chances of the father using the leave are very much greater if that leave is predicated to him only and is paid leave.
	There will, of course, be circumstances in which it is better for all concerned if the father works and the mother cares for the child; the converse also may be true. However, that decision is best made by both parents acting together, not simply by putting it in the hands of the mother.
	There is also a case for more flexibility in the way in which paternity and maternity leave can be taken. Two weeks at the very beginning is not entirely satisfactory. Why, for example, should a father not take an equivalent number of days by taking every Friday off for a longer period? If the father has a three-day weekend, that may be a much more useful contribution to family life and cause much less disruption to a small business than if he takes two weeks off—or, as I very much hope, six weeks off—all in one block.
	I believe that, in a society in which so many children now have to rely for emotional support on two parents living apart, there is a very strong case for investing in paternal, as well as maternal, attachment, especially in the first year of life. Today we are living in a new world and we have to make it work.

Baroness Knight of Collingtree: My Lords, I am very grateful to have just a few moments in which to ask a couple of questions and make a couple of points.
	It was reported with concern in at least one national newspaper at the weekend that, under the Bill, the husband or partner of a woman who has just given birth can have conferred on him the right to paid leave for any part of the nine months, or even 12 months, that the mother may choose not to take. This raised many questions in my mind. I read the Bill keenly right the way through—twice. People will not perhaps be altogether astonished that I could not discern what part of the Bill that came under and what the conditions were. That is not really surprising, because there is double Dutch, there is gobbledegook and there is parliamentary drafting. Sometimes it is very difficult to unravel what is actually meant.
	The Minister did not mention this matter in his speech, although my noble friend Lady Miller did. I have even more questions because of what she said and I ask the Minister to answer some of them when he replies.
	It seems that, because the man will almost certainly not be working for the same employer, it will be difficult for employers to know whether perhaps two or even three men are not making the same claim for the same paternity leave from different employers. I do not know who will check that. In days of yore, the man could be the husband of the woman and their name would be the same, so at least official records might know. Today, however, as like as not the parents will not be married and will have different names, so no records could discern that fraud was taking place. That worries me.
	Are there to be any checks as to whether the man—or men—claiming to look after the child is actually doing so? I wish I could believe that it was a beautiful world and no one would cheat, lie or try to get the best out of the social security system in our country, but I am sorry to say that evidence goes against that. I am very concerned on the part of the employer. As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has said, there could be great difficulties, particularly for an employer of only three or four people. I want to know whether employers will be reimbursed for what they pay. I could not find that. Is sufficient notice being taken of the difficulties it would cause to employers?
	Can we be certain that, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, all children will have their lives and health greatly improved because of this Bill? I wish that were true, and I hope it is, but I hae ma doots. I must say in passing that I cannot believe the noble Earl was ever described as an ape. I am sure he was just as charming then as he is now.
	In his speech, the noble Earl said that he felt it may put employers off employing women if this measure came in. As far as I can see, it would not make a darn bit of difference if you employed women. That is not the point; rather, it is employing the men who say they are going to take over from the women. It is fair to say that there are many unanswered questions in what I have no doubt is a very well intentioned Bill from the Government.

Lord Razzall: My Lords, as the Minister will be aware, it is customary in debates on trade and industry Bills for each noble Lord or noble Baroness who speaks to start by re-declaring their interests in the members' register. I do not think I need to declare an interest as the father of a daughter about to produce her first child in April, as presumably the regulations will not come into effect in time for her to benefit. Nevertheless, I join with other noble Lords in welcoming this Bill. The fact that Members of all political parties now generally accept the need for these very welcome provisions shows that there has clearly been a significant cultural change in our society. The Government's policies since they came to power in 1997 have no doubt contributed to that change, and I welcome that. As the Minister will know, we on these Benches have supported the Government's efforts to that effect.
	By way of introduction, I thank a number of the organisations that have given very helpful briefings to noble Lords. It has been interesting while listening to realise the effect those organisations have had on the remarks of noble Lords from all sides of the House. In particular the NSPCC, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux have made some helpful comments that have illuminated the remarks of colleagues from all quarters of the House.
	I do not wish to repeat the arguments on a number of points of detail, other than to say that I agree with them, but then at the end I want to spend a bit more time on two rather more fundamental points of principle. First, in no particular order, I agree with the comments made by my noble friend Lady Walmsley regarding the extension of flexible working to parents with children who are under 18. We accept the argument made by a number of NGOs that it is not logical to restrict the flexible working time to parents of children under six. All sides of the House would like to see the extension to parents of children up to the age of 18. The arguments have already been made eloquently from all quarters of the House, and I agree with them.
	Secondly, I also agree with the point that a number of noble Lords have made, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that flexible working should be extended to all carers with significant caring responsibilities. As the Bill progresses through the House that is an area of detail that we could look at and to which the Government might be sympathetic.
	There is a general feeling that the provisions for additional paternity leave and pay will not have the impact which the Government hope. It is suggested that the Government themselves are predicting a negligible take-up rate of additional paternity leave and pay of just 1 per cent, which seems a little silly in the context of what is clearly a desirable reform. The Liberal Democrats support the Government's stated aim of making it easier for working fathers to take time off to be with and care for their children, but we accept the argument, which I believe the citizens advice bureaux made, that that would be better achieved by enhancing the existing legal right to ordinary paternity leave, as it is now to be known. We argue that that might be increased from two to at least four weeks, that it should be more flexible and that, along with the statutory maternity and adoption leave, it should be better paid.
	The difficulty that we have with the statutory paternity leave is that, given the proposed rate of £106 per week, the take-up rate is likely to be very low. The Equal Opportunities Commission calculates that only 28 per cent of fathers would take statutory paternity leave at £106 per week. However, its research demonstrates that, were the Government to increase that sum to £200 per week, the take-up rate would rise to 80 per cent. We shall want to probe that area in Committee.
	We are concerned also—a number of noble Lords have indicated this—that the mechanism for paternity leave will make it very difficult for fathers to take it up, largely because of the length of notice that they have to give to take their ordinary paternity leave and the fact that it cannot be taken in separate blocks. That is an area on which we shall press the Government in Committee.
	In winding up I want to concentrate on two further fundamental issues of principle, both of which were raised in another place by my honourable friend Norman Lamb, the Member for North Norfolk. First, the new right to maternity leave extending from six months initially to nine months and then to a year, is unlikely to produce the effect that the Government would like if the £106 rate is not increased significantly. My honourable friend Norman Lamb suggested that the Government might follow the Swedish approach which would introduce more flexibility and enable a woman to choose how she will take the leave by simply allowing the mother to take the same amount of payment spread over a shorter period. If somebody wanted to take only three months off, they could have the maternity leave pay to which they would be entitled. The Swedish experience is that that increases the number of people who take up maternity leave rather than not taking it up at all. The argument used against that—which I think the Minister used in another place—was that that provided an incentive for people to spend less time with their children. However, the counter argument to that—this is certainly the European experience and particularly the Swedish experience—is that in those circumstances a number of people will take up maternity leave who would not take it up otherwise. The Government ought to look at that area. When the Government were pressed in another place on whether they had done a calculation on the financial impact of such an amendment, the answer was that they had not. I hope that in Committee the Government will indicate any extra costs that would be involved in that regard.
	Secondly, the effect of these provisions on small businesses has been touched on by a number of noble Lords. It is not simply a case of this provision applying unsatisfactorily in a lot of ways for small businesses, in that the costs are added to small businesses, but it touches on the general principle of regulation, which noble Lords from these Benches and Liberal Democrat Members in another place have been addressing for some time. Starting with the PAYE regulations and the impact of the collection of PAYE that was imposed on business when it was introduced after the Second World War, there has always been a significant cost of regulation, particularly in the collection of taxes, imposed on business, which is a cost that many of us would argue ought to be borne by the Revenue and by the Government rather than by small businesses.
	In another place, my honourable friend Norman Lamb, the Member for North Norfolk, introduced an amendment that regulations should be brought in by the Government to compensate any employer with fewer than 50 people for the cost of implementing these provisions. That amendment was supported by the Conservative Benches. That is a fundamental point; the Government are always saying that they are going to do something about the burden of regulation on business, and every time new legislation is brought in, albeit with beneficial consequences, it involves extra costs for business. Unless a line is drawn in the sand as we go through each Bill and people say, "No, we are not going to impose that cost on small business and we are going to compensate them", the burden of regulation on business will continue. In Committee, these Benches will propose a similar amendment to that proposed in the other place, and we hope that the Conservative Opposition will support us on it. I welcome the Bill, but the most fundamental point, apart from the details that have been touched on by other noble Lords, is whether we can draw the line here and give compensation to small business for the cost of implementing these regulations.

Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, I reiterate the thanks expressed by your Lordships and add my own to the Minister for his clear introduction of the Bill. We have had a lively, albeit somewhat specialised debate, with welcome contributions from all sides of the House. It is clear that there is a general welcome for the aims behind the Bill, but concerns remain about the delivery of those aims and how they will work in practice, not least because, as my noble friend Lady Miller noted, much of what we are discussing is still in the form of draft regulations and, even more worrying, still to be drafted regulations. There are several areas that we wish to explore as the Bill goes through Committee stage and where we will be probing the Government on their thinking behind certain issues.
	As my noble friend Lady Miller of Hendon explained in her opening speech, we have the pleasure of performing a double act on this Bill. My noble friend will, as she has more than ably demonstrated, address the DTI angle; and I will concentrate on the family issues. As such, I do not want to go over too much of what my noble friend has said, other than to emphasise the need for further debate surrounding the workings of the statutory maternity pay for small businesses, the complexities of additional paternity leave, which have been so forthrightly addressed by my noble friend Lady Knight of Collingtree, and the two clauses that obviously had no other home to go to—the detailed workings of annual leave in Clause 13 and the increase in redundancy pay in Clause 14. I will take this opportunity to raise a few overlapping and additional issues.
	The family is the crucial building block of a stable and prosperous society. Indeed, the lack of proper family structure is a sure path to poverty. As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, have rightly said, those early months and years are critical to the physical and emotional development of our children. Perhaps this is the time for us on these Benches to congratulate David and Samantha Cameron on the birth today of their baby boy and to wish them some happy days together.
	We are now so much more aware of the need for proper attachment between babies and their mothers, so the extension of maternity leave in the Bill is enormously welcome. As we heard from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, the importance of fathers in the upbringing of their children is now widely recognised.
	Studies in an Equal Opportunities Commission report, Shared caring: bringing fathers into the frame, confirmed the importance of early paternal investment in caring. I was, therefore, particularly pleased to learn that almost 80 per cent of fathers are very positive about their employers' attitudes regarding time off work following the birth of a baby. Even where less generous paternity leave provisions were available, fathers tended to regard their employers as sympathetic and helpful. But however sympathetic and helpful employers are, juggling a job and family responsibilities is still not easy. So it is hardly surprising that EOC polling shows that seven out of 10 people were concerned about what family life would be like for their children and grandchildren; and six out of 10 people were worried about spending enough time with their families.
	This concern is amplified when employees become carers. The whole issue of caring is near and dear to the hearts of many of us. My noble friend Lady Miller and I have had the privilege and the pleasure of looking after our mothers in our own homes. But not everyone can have their elderly relatives living with them and sometimes the person they are caring for is not related to them. I should think most of us taking part in this debate will have had the unenviable task of trying to fulfil their work commitments while looking after the best needs of those they love and care for.
	The request for flexible working has undoubtedly been a success. According to the 2005 CBI Employment Trends Survey, 90 per cent of requests are accommodated. This has resulted in savings for companies in recruitment and training, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, pointed out, and absence costs; and they reap the undeniable benefit of a happier and, I hope, more productive workforce.
	We have seen some innovative thinking from companies in this area. Just last month McDonald's launched a scheme called the Family Contract that allows employees to share their jobs with other members of their families. Anyone over the age of 16—that is, children, mothers, fathers, or grandparents—can share the job and swap shifts according to their family requirements. McDonald's is currently trialling this in six cities and if it proves to be successful it may consider extending it to friends and wider family members. Obviously it is a big company, operating in a sector which lends itself to that work practice. Such working practices certainly would not suit all companies and all employees, but it is an illustration of how business is often ahead of legislation.
	Many companies—the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, mentioned some of them—have voluntarily extended the right to request flexible working to all staff. If someone can make a business case that it will not impact on their work or those around them, they are more often than not granted their request. This has an added benefit in that it stops the feeling of resentment from employees who do not have the opportunity of flexible working and who feel they have to pick up the burden of their colleagues who do.
	Although we welcome the extension of flexible working to carers, we have some concerns. We share the unease of the Federation of Small Businesses that each change to the legislation adds another regulatory layer for small business to deal with. The FSB argues that small businesses are the original flexible employers. As the daughter of parents who ran a small cake shop and employed eight people—most of them my cousins, aunts and uncle, so perhaps we were ahead of McDonald's—I know from first hand experience how owners of small firms bend over backwards to accommodate their workforce. Indeed, it is often at the expense of their own work/life balance.
	The Conservative Party believes that increased rights for parents and carers often means increased burdens on other employees, so we want to engage in a wider debate on the implications and practicalities of extending the right to request to everyone and not just to carers. But, in the context of this Bill, we are talking only about carers, and the concern from many of the employers groups over extending flexible working comes about because the definition of a carer is not exactly clear.
	I take this opportunity to thank the Minister for the publication of the draft regulations at the end of last month. It is a great shame that they were not prepared in time for the debate in the other place, particularly as that is when they were promised. We hope that the remaining regulations will be produced before the Committee stage in this House but, in the mean time, we will study in detail those that have been produced and, in particular, will probe the Government on their thinking and on the limitations behind the definition of a carer.
	In our recent debates on the Adoption and Children Bill in this House, we paid tribute to all those who give time and effort to fostering or adopting, giving a child a second chance of a secure family life with all the advantages that that can bring. I join the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in praising all that they do. So we very much appreciate the introduction of Clause 2 and the extension of the adoption pay period to 52 weeks.
	We also welcome Clause 4, which introduces the new statutory right to additional paternity leave for employees following the placement of a child for adoption. However, I share the concerns of BAAF—the British Association for Adoption and Fostering—regarding the newly developed concurrent planning schemes, which have been developed since adoption leave and pay were introduced. These fledgling schemes—I think there are about four at the moment—approve potential carers as both foster carers and adopters so that young children can be placed with them on an interim basis while their birth families complete an assessment to see whether it will be safe to allow the children to return to live with them. Where it is established that the children cannot return home, the placement with the foster carers is converted to an adoptive one with a following application for an adoption order. There are huge benefits for the children concerned. They are not passed from pillar to post and some order is brought into their fragile world.
	But there is a problem. Because the initial placement is on a fostering basis, if the case proceeds to adoption, the parents are not eligible for adoption leave or pay. All hope is that the practice of concurrence will grow. It would be a tragedy if the exceptional people that we need to participate in these schemes were deterred from doing so because they were not entitled to statutory pay and could not rely on their right to return to work. Ultimately, if these wonderful and selfless people do adopt, they will save the state an enormous amount of money in care costs. I hope that the Minister will look at this anomaly and give it serious consideration in the run-up to the Committee stage of the Bill.
	It is essential that we provide families, parents and carers with genuine choice and flexibility so that they can balance their family life and work commitments as best as they possibly can. But we also need to provide business with legislation that does not tie it up in acres of red tape and does not cost its competitive edge. In their 2005 manifesto, the Government claimed that they would regulate only where necessary and set exacting targets to decrease the costs of administrative regulations. They also stated:
	"Government does not create wealth but must support the wealth creators".
	Yet we debate this Bill today in the knowledge that the CBI is critical of the Government for having failed to meet their commitment to the better regulation agenda and for failing to provide a balanced package which is both family-friendly and business-supportive. As my right honourable friend Theresa May said from our Benches in the other place:
	"There is no point in being family-friendly if we are not job-friendly".—[Official Report, Commons, 5/12/05; col. 656.]
	Without income, it is hard for any family to achieve any balance at all.
	The Bill touches on some very big issues, and throughout Committee we will work towards achieving a practical and reasonable balance. After all, this is, as the Government recognised in their consultation document, one way of ensuring that the next generation have the best possible start in life.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the debate for their support for the general thrust of the proposals, which is very welcome. Many interesting and important points have been raised, all of which I have listened to with great interest. I shall try to deal with as many as possible.
	I shall start with the cost to business which was raised by a number of speakers and certainly by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and the noble Lords, Lord Razzall and Lord Northbourne. Concerns have been raised about the Bill being unduly costly to employers but I assure the House that that is not the case. This package is good news for employers as well as for employees and presents a balanced framework of rights and responsibilities for both employers and employees. We are making it easier for employers to manage leave and pay and at the same time we are extending entitlements for employees. We also want to minimise the burdens on business of the new arrangements in line with the Government's better regulation agenda.
	In his introduction to the Bill, my noble friend pointed out the background to it and that throughout the Work and Families: Choice and Flexibility consultation we considered how best to help business. He itemised some of the ways in which we have done that: the start date for maternity pay; being able to compute maternity pay on a daily basis; keeping-in-touch days; and the extended notice periods for women who change their return dates from maternity leave from 28 days to two months. All those matters were pressed on us by the business community and it is right that we have responded.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, spoke about the keeping-in-touch days. Under current rules a whole week's statutory pay is lost if one day is given up to the employer. There is concern that employers should not use these opportunities to harass people to try to get them to return to work. We agree that the existing regulations can sometimes have the effect of preventing contact between employer and employee during maternity and adoption leave and that is why we are changing the law. We also agree that it is important that employers have confidence in making use of keeping-in-touch days and the regulations published in draft make it clear that both parties must agree that the keeping-in-touch days should take place. Neither has the right to demand that they take place without the full agreement of the other. We have dealt with the issue of trying to clarify the import of keeping-in-touch days.
	Noble Lords have mentioned the cost to businesses. I remind the House that there is an opportunity for reimbursement. Small employers are provided with reimbursement at a rate 104.5 per cent of the money that they pay out and they have an opportunity to claim funding in advance. Although I do not believe they were greeted with great approval, some of the new arrangements to help the calculation of statutory maternity pay are a help.
	I also remind noble Lords that there is a huge benefit to business, which a number of people recognised. It is considered that £80 is the average cost of dealing with a straightforward, flexible working request, whereas the cost of recruiting a new employee is about £4,800 and firms need to recruit and to retain the best staff and enable parents to remain in the workplace. Ninety-four per cent of employers thought that people worked best when they strike a better balance between work and the rest of their lives. Employers benefit from being able to recruit from the widest talent pool. Women now make up 45 per cent of the workforce, whereas in 1971 the figure was 38 per cent. By 2010 there will be 2 million more jobs, and four out of five are likely to be filled by women.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, spoke about the CD-ROM, saying it would be complex to use for the calculation, but we do not necessarily think that is the case. Employers' savings are estimated purely in terms of time costs and in net terms—gross time saved on old tasks, less time spent on new tasks. HMRC's costs are estimated not only in staff time costs but also in IT systems costs and the costs are cumulative.
	My noble friend spelled out direct payments in some detail in his introductory speech. Looking at it in more detail, just think of some of the complexities that it would involve if it were to proceed. It would involve a major new role for both employers and HMRC. Up-to-date information from the employer would enable HMRC to take on temporary payroll duties for the employer, which would involve deciding eligibility for and calculating gross SMP, and calculating the full range of payroll deductions, according to the detailed rules for each, which will be taxed—national insurance, student loan deductions, pension contributions, union subscriptions, payroll giving, save as you earn, a repayment of interest-free or reduced-rate loans from the employer. It would involve paying over the deductions properly, and making the net payment to the employee on their normal pay dates.
	Up-to-date information from HMRC about direct payments of SMP and deductions would then enable the employers to make employers' SMP-based contributions by the due dates, make returns when needed and take over the complete payroll function at the end of the direct payment period. Just running through that highlights just how complex it would be. It would involve a mixture of removed tasks, retained tasks and new tasks for employers.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, talked about annual leave entitlement, and why it was in the Bill. It was a manifesto commitment that we would, during our third term in office, increase the existing four-week entitlement to annual leave to reflect permanent bank and public holidays. As with existing leave entitlement, this would be on a pro rata basis for those working part time. While we are taking regulation-making powers in this Bill, we will be conducting a full and extensive consultation with business and other stakeholders before detailed regulations are brought forward for affirmative resolution.
	Most full-time employees already receive 20 days' or more paid leave, not counting bank holidays. The same is true for many part-timers, who receive an equivalent entitlement based on the time that they work. Those who do not are likely to be in lower-paid occupations, including women in part-time jobs and ethnic minorities.
	The issue of the broad powers to make regulations was raised. We should not underestimate the complexity of this issue, given the variety of working patterns which exist today. Powers under Clause 13 ensure that regulations may make comparable provision to that under the Working Time Regulations, such as arrangements for taking leave and bringing a complaint to the tribunal. The Government are committed to undertaking a full and extensive consultation with stakeholders before detailed changes are put before Parliament, as well as gathering more data on existing arrangements.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, again raised a specific point about who the father eligible for additional paternity leave and pay is. To simplify the scheme, it is proposed that the same definition of a father as for paternity leave will be used under the additional paternity leave scheme; that is, he is the father of the child, or married—or the partner, including the civil partner—of the child's mother, and is responsible for the upbringing of the child. This works well now, and we have had no representations from business to say that this definition is problematic, although we will consult further on the details of the additional paternity leave scheme.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon—again—and the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, in particular, raised regulation. Better regulation is a top priority for the Government. The DTI is taking forward a radical regulatory reform programme, following the recommendations of Philip Hampton and David Arculus. The DTI will deliver £1 billion of reductions in burdens by 2010.
	We consult business fully before devising new proposals. There is a draft simplification plan covering all areas of DTI policy, including company and consumer law. There is also a new programme of work on employment law, which aims to simplify rules and improve guidance without undermining rights in those areas business has identified as being difficult to understand. This includes work on the statement of employment particulars, the redundancy law framework, the maternity pay leave regime, targeted enforcement inspections, in keeping with Hampton principles, and confirms the review of dispute resolution procedures.
	We were asked why we are changing the statutory scheme on redundancy matters. Again this is a government manifesto commitment to raise the weekly limit. We are going to consult on this and no decisions have been taken about what the weekly limit might be.
	Issues were raised about the reasons for not proceeding with transferred leave and pay and why the Government are no longer proceeding with that arrangement. The transfer of maternity leave and pay poses some legal complexities. In working through these it became clear that providing fathers with an additional period of paternity leave would provide a more straightforward mechanism for delivering the policy intentions, while being similar to administer and clearer than a father being transferred maternity leave and pay. Additional paternity leave and pay provides fathers with an opportunity to take an additional period of paternity leave, some of which can be paid if the mother returns to work and enables either the mother or the father to be off work to care for the child in the first year.
	A question was asked about regulations being subject to the affirmative procedure. All the arrangements are set out in the Bill, either in the clauses or in Schedule 1. All regulations are affirmative, apart from maternity adoption pay and flexible working. The Secretary of State gave that assurance in the other place but, to be clear, this is covered in the Bill although not easy to find as you have to delve into Schedule 1 to get some of it, I think.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, welcomed the Bill. We thank her for that. She touched on the rate of benefit and said that it was too low and that there was not enough take up. The flat rate has gone up significantly since 1997 when it was £55.70 a week. It is due to go up in April of this year to £108, and by April 2007 government support for working families will be worth more than £8,000 during the first year of a child's life, if you look at the package together, compared to £2,600 in 1997. I think that, by any measure, is a spectacular commitment by the Government to support families and children.
	The issue was raised, again by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, about fathers taking paternity leave and pay earlier. If a woman returns to work, say in three months, why cannot the father take leave at that point? Responses to the Work and Families: Choice and Flexibility consultation were overwhelmingly in favour of reserving the first six months of leave for the mother for a variety of reasons. If fathers were able to take up additional paternity leave when the mother returned to work after three months of maternity leave, it could lead to women feeling under pressure to return at this earlier point and therefore earlier than they may actually wish. That may give rise to health issues or affect the mother's ability to continue to breast feed, if she wishes to do so. It is in line with World Health Organisation guidance.
	The issue was raised about the right to request leave for all carers. As your Lordships know, we are currently consulting on which carers are covered. A number of noble Lords touched on that issue. We are concerned that too broad a definition would make it more difficult for business, particularly small businesses, to manage demand—and small businesses have featured significantly in our discussions this afternoon. Small businesses have stressed that their resources to meet an increase in demand are limited, and the CBI's own research shows that although small businesses are more likely to accept a request, they are finding it more difficult to accommodate requests. The success of the law so far is due to the widespread support of employers.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, made an interesting point. She said that sometimes these things are accommodated at the expense of perhaps the owner/shareholder of a business who takes the strain.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and other noble Lords raised the issue that the right to request should be extended to parents of older children. We will continue to examine the case for that. We are keeping a targeted approach to provide employers with the best way of managing requests, knowing that, on the basis of experience today, it is likely to stimulate many to open up flexible working to others in their workforce. There was agreement from the consultation that carers face real difficulties balancing work and caring responsibilities and should be given priority in any extension to the law, which is what we are doing.
	Many parents have benefited from the law and many employers, persuaded by the business case, now willingly consider requests from other parents and members of their workforce. Other measures provide support to parents that is not available to carers and other individuals to the same extent. Those include plans to extend school opening hours and our commitment by 2010 to provide out-of-school childcare places for all children aged between three and 14.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, also mentioned that 15 weeks' notice was too long. We are keen to ensure that the notice period is appropriate. The existing period of notice that employees need to give in order to take paternity leave is appropriate. Although employees have an entitlement to leave, it is only right that employers should have the right to receive proper notice of employees' intentions so that they can plan ahead and provide cover or make alternative arrangements as necessary. Careful consultation prior to the introduction of the new paternity leave and pay entitlements in 2003 took into account the views of both employees and employers. Entitlements such as those need to reflect the interests of everyone affected.
	The point was raised that four out of 10 mothers are not in work at the time of birth, so their partners would not benefit from additional paternity leave or pay. Where women are not working prior to the birth of a child and so not entitled to maternity leave that is often because they already have other children. It is not thought that many women in those circumstances would want to start working before the second or third child was more than 12 months old.
	We have sought to balance the needs of employers and employees in developing the new rights; the eligibility requirements; and the accompanying administrative arrangements attached to fathers taking additional paternity leave. We are of course planning to consult further on the details of the scheme and will carefully consider representations made by stakeholders.
	The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham welcomed the Bill. We are grateful for that. He raised the issue of low pay and whether the rate of pay would inhibit families from making best use of the extended arrangements. Again, we should consider the whole package available to families with children—not just paternity and maternity pay—and how we can best target resources.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, also supported the Bill. She also asked about small businesses. I stress that they are entitled to be reimbursed for the costs of statutory maternity and paternity pay at a rate of 104.5 per cent. However, she highlighted the huge contribution that carers make to the wellbeing of our society. I think that the figure that she cited was £277 billion, which is a staggering figure indeed. She asked about the definition of carers. Many different definitions of carers are currently in use. We are currently consulting on our proposed definition. Our primary concern is for the law to be clear and straightforward. It would be difficult to achieve legal certainty if we specifically define such concepts as the sick or elderly. We propose to take the same approach to defining who is covered by the legislation as was taken for parents and children, where we define not the nature of care involved but, instead, the relationship between the carer and those for whom they care.
	The noble Baroness also asked about carers being able to make a request more than once a year. We need to be mindful of the impact of the legislation on employers. Our approach has always been to balance the needs of employers and employees. Employers are already familiar with current practice. Making changes and increasing the number of requests would add too much to the burden on employers.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, again brought to our debate his clear commitment on the issues of family and children for which he is well recognised in this House. He paid tribute to the work and commitment of his erstwhile colleague Lord Chan. It is appropriate that we echo that across the whole House.
	He said in particular that the day-care provision for children under 12 months needs attention. The new Childcare Bill, which was presented on 8 November, will implement proposals outlined in the 10-year childcare strategy, alongside the Work and Families Bill. As has been recognised, the Childcare Bill is truly pioneering legislation and is the first ever Bill exclusively concerned with early years and childcare. It will help to transform childcare and early-years services in England for generations to come.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, made a point about employers discriminating against women as a result of the Bill's measures. Employers who refuse to employ women because they are pregnant or on maternity leave are breaking the law and damaging their businesses. But we believe that most employers are good employers. The Government's own survey evidence is robust. For example, in the 2002 maternity and parental rights survey, only 3 per cent of women who worked as employees during pregnancy said they had experienced difficulties with their employer about when they started maternity leave, and 6 per cent said they were treated with less respect by their employer or line manager. Notwithstanding that, we are not complacent and will continue to monitor all evidence.
	Perhaps it is right to restate the statistic that as women's rights have increased, their participation in the labour market has also increased. They now make up 45 per cent of the workforce, as I said. Between 1971 and 2004, female employment rates in the UK rose from 42 per cent to 70 per cent.
	The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, raised issues, again about small businesses, and about parents being able to share paid leave between themselves. Statutory paternity rights are currently available to an employee who has met eligibility qualifying criteria to take some time off to care for the child and support the mother around the birth of the child. We are likely to allow only one stream of payment, so a father would not be able to take paid additional paternity leave at the same time as a mother was receiving SMP or the maternity allowance. We need to consider the best use of resources, and it would not be appropriate for the state to pay for two parents to be off work for up to six months together to care for a baby.
	Why is additional paternity leave dependent on a mother's choice to take leave? The aim of additional paternity leave and pay is to give parents more choice by enabling either the mother or the father to be off work to care for their child in the first year.
	The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, asked about producing regulations and allowing key workers to be obliged to go into work occasionally. Understandably, there are difficulties in firms where specialist workers take any kind of leave, but this applies to both men and women, not just to fathers who want to take additional paternity leave. Parents already give notice of their intentions to take maternity and paternity leave, which gives employers time to adjust business plans to accommodate absences. Revisions allowing us to specify notice periods are included in the Bill, and we have the keeping-in-touch days, which will allow occasional days of work or training.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Knight of Collingtree, asked particularly about practical issues and whether there could be fraud, as two employers could be involved in the arrangements. We will consult on the arrangements in detail, just to highlight some of the complexities that need to be addressed. Certainly, the Government will continue to reimburse payments in the same way in which they reimburse maternity pay and paternity pay at present.
	On the administration, we are not starting with a blank sheet. We already have systems in place for men who want to obtain paternity leave and pay, and we will build on these, but it is an important issue.
	The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, welcomed the Bill, and we are grateful for that. He touched on two issues of principle; in particular, the rate of pay, and whether we could move towards the Swedish approach of condensing the leave but keeping the pay at the same rate. He has probably anticipated the response that he will get, which I think was the one that was given in another place; what we do not want to do is to encourage women to return to work too soon. The purpose of these arrangements is to do the reverse of that, and there is a real risk that proceeding down that path could have that effect. The noble Lord also touched on small businesses and the costs associated with them. It has not traditionally been the case that the costs of complying with legal obligations by companies, large or small, have been reimbursed by government. That would be a departure from normal practice.
	With the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, perhaps we should also celebrate the birth of a child. We send our congratulations to the noble Baroness's new leader. She made reference to the McDonald's experiment. My wife has focused on that and has offered to appear at the next Treasury Question Time. The noble Baroness also referred to the issue of initially fostering a child and then transferring to adoption. Concurrent adoptions are under consideration and we are considering how the leave and pay rules may apply to concurrent placements. My time has run out—I have exceeded it.
	The Government have a record of support for working families that is second to none. In 1997, most women were entitled to just 14 weeks' maternity leave. It is now more than triple that at 52 weeks for most women—from April 2007, it will be 52 weeks for all employed mothers. Back in 1997, women who qualified got just 18 weeks' statutory maternity pay. The increase proposed in these arrangements will mean about £1,400 to each working mother, and it does not stop there. We have an ambition to raise that still further to a full year's pay by the end of this Parliament. We have significantly raised the level of payment from £55.60 in 1997 to £108.85 from April of this year.
	In 2003, we recognised the growing importance that families place on the role of fathers in care of a new baby, which we are now building on with this Bill. In 1999, we created a new entitlement for parents to take 13 weeks' unpaid leave up to a child's fifth birthday. We also recognised the hugely important role played by adopters by ensuring that their rights to paid time off work mirrored those of birth mothers as far as possible. We introduced a right for all employees, regardless of length of service, to take a reasonable amount of unpaid time off work to deal with emergencies involving a dependent. Since 1997, 1.2 million childcare places have been created. As noble Lords have already heard, the Work and Families Bill responds to changing employment patterns. It aims to ensure that parents and those with caring responsibilities have genuine choices about how to balance their work and family life. It will also help business recruit and retain the best people from the widest possible pool of talent. I echo the words of my noble friend when I say that this legislation can enhance Britain's economic success, can raise employment levels and can increase the standard of living for families. I believe that there should be genuine consensus about the issues in this Bill, although noble Lords will, as indicated, want to examine specific areas closely. On the basis of today's debate, I am confident that this Bill will receive a high level of detailed and expert scrutiny in Committee: I look forward to continuing the debate there.
	On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Grand Committee.

Child Support Agency

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve the effectiveness of the Child Support Agency.
	My Lords, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to introduce a debate on the Child Support Agency. I am not growling at the Minister; I am suffering from a lingering throat infection. When I start growling at him, he might know about it. I apologise to the House for the quality of my voice. I hope that people can make out what I am saying. I will be as distinct as I can.
	The debate today is apposite. The Government have taken some very important decisions on this important area of public policy. I hope that the Minister will share with the House more extended thoughts about the Statement last week. There is a market outside the House for him. He is the responsible Minister and he has an important role to play in the development of the review that has been announced. If he can share his thoughts with us today, it will be to everyone's benefit.
	I am told that it is customary when referring to the Child Support Agency to acknowledge the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. I have not yet had a chance to do so, but as a former chairman of the Select Committee which dealt with the issue over two Parliaments, I more than most can say that the noble Baroness was absolutely diligent and an expert in her subject. Any failures that may or may not have arisen in the systems employed by the agency were certainly not down to her lack of interest in or knowledge of the subject. I hope that she is now recovering from her recent minor illness.
	The House knows that the Select Committee conducted an inquiry into the performance of the Child Support Agency and published a report in January 2005. The committee was careful about making extreme recommendations, but at the time we were impelled to make the decision that the agency was coming to the end of what was reasonable in terms of whether it was fit for purpose. We came to the conclusion that the Government might have to consider whether to wind up the agency altogether and replace it with alternative plans for providing financial support for children in separated families. After the exhaustive report undertaken by the incoming Secretary of State, it has now been decided to have a major root and branch review to look at those alternatives. I welcome that. It is a brave decision and, in my view, the only option available to the Minister. I hope that, in now moving forward, we can make the best of a very difficult situation.
	The position is difficult because big questions remain on legacy issues. Whole categories of people are in difficulties because they have been caught in the meltdown of the existing failed models. Obviously we want to be careful and follow the Government's thinking about what is to replace the agency in due course. It is tempting just to consider the "blank piece of paper" rightly handed to Sir David Henshaw as a reason for moving on from the failure of the past 15 years. I certainly hope that psychologically we can get into that way of thinking, but we cannot move on while the misery caused by the agency's catastrophic performance remains unaddressed. The agency's Operational Improvement Plan, which covers the years 2006-09, is intended to bring major improvements to cases taken on since 2003. We wish the plan well. But I want to draw attention to those caught up in the mess of the pre-2003 scheme. Today I shall highlight two issues.
	First, I turn to parents with care and on benefits who are trapped in the old scheme. We discussed this during the response to the Statement last week and we know that around 270,000 parents with care and on income support or receiving the jobseeker's allowance remain on the pre-2003 scheme. Their children get absolutely no benefit whatever from any maintenance paid. These parents and their children have been waiting for three years to be transferred to the new scheme in order to gain access to the £10 child maintenance premium. The Government of course concede that there is a problem in treating two groups of the poorest parents in different ways, but the argument appears to be that they can do nothing about it because of "operational feasibility and cost".
	I understand that it may be difficult and expensive to identify those parents with care on benefit whose ex-partners are paying child maintenance and pay them extra. I do not think for a moment that it is easy, but perhaps I may suggest a solution that would make this a great deal simpler and cheaper. We should disregard completely any child maintenance paid by the non-resident parent where the parent with care is on income support or JSA. That is the system operated in Australia, where there is a 100 per cent "pass through" for parents out of work and on benefit. The cost of that has been quantified at some £230 million, which is a substantial sum. But against that sum one must set the considerable savings in administration which could be made by allowing the agency simply to pass on all the maintenance paid to parents with care without having to split the money where the parent with care is on benefit.
	More important is the incentive for non-resident parents to pay if they know that all the money they are paying is going straight to their children and not being siphoned off to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury. That incentive effect is clearly demonstrated in Australia in getting non-resident parents to be more reasonable about the way they react to their responsibilities and family duties.
	After all that has been said, there is a basic argument of fairness. We know that lone parents with care on income support exist below the poverty line. The last figures I saw, contained in recent research carried out by Bath University, indicate that a lone parent with a child aged five is 18 per cent below the poverty line after housing costs. This cohort of the population is intrinsically poor.
	We also know that, controlling for other factors, receipt of regular child maintenance is strongly associated with leaving benefit and returning to work. That is playing with the grain of established government policy which is successful and I am sure that the House generally supports it. More than that, we already allow working parents subsidised through the working tax credit to keep child maintenance payments that they receive, so how on earth can we justify less well off parents and their children being financially worse off in that respect? It is contrary to natural justice; Sir David Henshaw must look seriously at the issue and the Government must support him in doing so. Six years after rightly conceding that it was unfair that children in families on benefit had no direct financial gain from any maintenance paid and three years after introducing the child maintenance premium to rectify the situation, the Government now have an urgent obligation to play fair by families in this position.
	I hope that Sir David Henshaw will also look at the second legacy issue, that of compensation for arrears which will never, in my view, be collected. The agency's Operational Improvement Plan frankly admits that "much of" the £3.3 thousand million owed in maintenance arrears since 1993 is "uncollectable". It puts this down to the limitations of the agency's power of enforcement. That is a huge and devastating admission for many parents with care. For 15 years they have had to rely solely on the CSA to collect and enforce maintenance payments which they are legally owed. These are legal entitlements under the statute created in 1991. Many of those families have struggled to raise their children in considerable financial hardship and are still waiting to receive many thousands of pounds. There is no doubt in my mind that the agency bears a considerable part of the blame for the failure to collect the millions owed. As many parents with care will testify, it has repeatedly failed to take prompt and effective action—if any—to enforce non-resident parents' legal liabilities in many cases.
	In parenthesis, however, I noticed that when reading the Statement last week, the Minister rightly underscored the important part played by the CSA's professional staff. They are as much the victims as some of the families. They were given systems that were not made to work. In any Child Support Agency centre I visited, I never left without thinking that the professionalism applied by the staff was remarkable in the circumstances. The Minister should take every opportunity to support staff morale. Given that they are operating in difficult circumstances, they do a very good job, all things considered.
	The Government should not be allowed to walk away from the consequences of their own administrative failure. I hope that Sir David Henshaw will be asked to look carefully at whether there is any way that steps can be taken to compensate the hundreds of thousands of parents with care and their children who have suffered years of financial hardship as a result of the agency's failure actively to pursue collection and enforcement procedures of sums to which these families are legally entitled.
	In conclusion, I should like to make two points which I hope Sir David Henshaw's review will consider. I refer first to the possibility of repealing Section 6 of the Child Support Act 1991. The House will know that, under that section, parents with care on income support or income-based jobseeker's allowance are required to apply for child maintenance as a condition of claiming benefit. This has turned out to be a singularly unproductive process for the agency, as the figures that the department has recently published have shown. It is currently costing the agency around £200 million to deal with benefit cases. In return, it is collecting £120 million in child maintenance. You do not need to be an accountant to work out that that is not a very clever return on investment.
	Worse still, around 70 per cent of the agency's intake now comes via Jobcentre Plus, but nearly two thirds of the case load that is taken on in this way never gets as far as a calculation. The vast majority of cases are closed, because of a reconciliation or because the claimant goes off benefit. There is a whole raft of reasons. The department is doing an awful lot of work to no actual purpose. In contrast, 60 per cent of non-benefit cases result in an initial calculation and set-up. That speaks volumes about how the agency has a relevancy and can do a serious piece of work for non-benefit cases, in contrast with the difficulties which bedevil the whole system when people are required under Section 6 to take advantage of the Child Support Agency procedures.
	The agency spends a considerable amount of staff time and effort on cases which never lead anywhere. That is a poor use of resources. It would be far better to consider—I hope that Sir David will do this—a system where parents with care on benefit actively choose to use the Child Support Agency in situations where they are likely to be materially better off and in situations where the agency could be expected to do a more professional job if a lot of the dead wood was taken away from it. If parents with care were given the option of choosing when to apply for the use of CSA, the whole system would become an awful lot more workable, manageable, professional and fit for purpose.
	Sir David should be asked to look carefully also at the practical and emotional consequences of family breakdown, again because of Australian experience. As we all know, the Child Support Agency intervenes at a very sensitive and difficult time in parents' lives. We know from research that a non-resident parent is much more likely to pay maintenance if he is still emotionally and practically engaged in the support and custody of his children. We know too that while most parents with care desperately need extra financial support that maintenance can bring, they can sometimes be reluctant to seek maintenance if it would jeopardise contact or make a fraught situation with an ex-partner even worse. Children can end up suffering long-term material deprivation and emotional damage when parents split up badly.
	During the Work and Pensions Select Committee's inquiry into the Child Support Agency, it looked carefully at the family relationship centres in Australia. They provide a range of easily accessible services to parents and children at all stages of family life, including family breakdown. I hope that the Henshaw review will offer an opportunity for this country to look at whether those sets of circumstances and policies could work here. The Select Committee concluded that better co-ordination across all central government departments and agencies to help provide preventive family support systems at the early stages of prospective family breakdown would be a sensible public investment.
	I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity regularly to update the House as Sir David Henshaw's report unfolds. I hope that we will be able to follow the steps that the Government are taking. We all wish the agency better fortune in future, but I hope that the Minister will agree with me that we cannot abandon the legacy issues arising from past systems which have prevented the agency working properly and with which people are still struggling.

The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, for the opportunity to take part in this short but important debate about the future of the Child Support Agency. In his informed and eloquent speech he mentioned the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. On a previous occasion in this House, on January 2005, when the noble Baroness was the Minister, she and I had an exchange in a brief debate about the CSA. If I say that she was robust in her response, noble Lords will understand something of the ambience of the occasion.
	The noble Baroness assured me subsequently in a letter that she shared my concern about the importance of ensuring effective action to support lone parents on low income. I had stressed, in both my speech and my letter to her, that I was particularly concerned about the parents on benefits who, through no fault of their own, as the noble Lord has just said, found themselves in great personal distress and financial hardship. Some of my clergy had at the time described specific cases to me of genuine hardship caused by this situation. The noble Baroness assured me that the Child Support Agency was sorting it all out.
	Now, I recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said, that none of what has happened is the noble Baroness's fault. I concur entirely with that, as she did an enormous amount of work in this very difficult area. Nevertheless, a year later it emerges that there are still urgent questions to be asked about those who are currently trapped in what the noble Lord described as the meltdown of the controversy surrounding the CSA. So what I hope for from this debate is an assurance from the Government that those who are on benefits, who, as we have heard are stuck in the pre-2003 system administered by the Child Support Agency, will have their cases looked at urgently even now—and even though the third review to face us in nearly 15 years is under way.
	It has been pointed out on previous occasions that those on the old system, pre-2003, do not benefit at all from the collection of maintenance from the non-resident parent and that all the money goes straight to the Exchequer. At least those on the system after 2003 can keep £10 a week if the non-resident parent pays up. At the time last year, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said that the extent and gravity of this problem was being over-talked. Certainly, I recognise that £10 to most of us here is a pretty small amount. In my letter to her, I emphasised the importance of small amounts of money, such as £10 a week, to those who are facing poverty, and that an extra £10 each and every week can be of real help to those who are on benefits. Having or not having that £10 really does have an effect on either alleviating or making worse child poverty. In Manchester, Salford—in the 11 local authority areas of the Manchester diocese—there are plenty of examples to support that.
	According to the organisation called One Parent Families, about 250,000 lone parents are still stuck in the old system and are not able to keep the £10. Forgive me for being repetitive on this point, but the issue is deeply disturbing and distressing for those who are suffering in that regard. I understand that they were promised that they would be transferred over to the new system, whereby they could keep the £10 a week. I would be very pleased this evening if the Minister were able to tell me that I was getting this wrong—but I believe that that has still not happened.
	On a wider point, the link between child poverty and lone parent families has been well researched, and there is plenty of evidence available for it in Greater Manchester. What is obvious and proven is that maintenance plays a key role in helping children out of poverty.
	I believe that we need to take a long, hard look at how government money is spent in this area. For example, are we going to continue to spend millions of pounds chasing non-payers to, as it would seem, little effect? Are we going to spend huge resources of time, energy and money trying to sort out the mess of the computer systems? Or are we prepared to think again imaginatively and intelligently about how non-resident parents can be encouraged to support their children financially? Are we prepared to explore rigorously the connection between the benefits system and low income of lone parents?
	I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, hoping that Sir David Henshaw's review will be a help to enable us all to deal effectively with these sad issues. I certainly wish the Minister well in finding a way forward through the complexities that have so unfortunately arisen during these past 15 years. I am sure that he will acknowledge the tragedy that the people who have paid the highest price for the failure of the CSA are the children themselves.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester has spoken powerfully for those trapped in the pre-2003 system, if I can call it that. As he rightly said, there are important and urgent questions to be answered on this by the Minister.
	The cross-party report by the Commons Work and Pensions Committee, ably chaired by my noble friend Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, described the CSA as,
	"a failing organisation which is currently in crisis".
	The report said:
	"Rapid and radical action must be taken to provide an acceptable service for the children who are its beneficiaries".
	That has not been done and the clock is ticking. The report concluded:
	"It is difficult to exaggerate . . . the Agency's already low reputation . . . the Committee recommends that consideration must be given to the option of winding up the Child Support Agency and plans made for an alternative set of policies".
	In the House of Commons, on 16 November, the Prime Minister said:
	"I make no defence of the current situation. The CSA is in an extremely difficult position . . . It is the investigating agency, then it is the adjudicating agency, and then it is the enforcement agency . . . the basic problem remains . . . it is extremely difficult to make this operation cost-effective when the agency is the investigating, adjudicating and enforcing authority . . . The truth is that the agency is not properly suited to carry out that task".—[Official Report, Commons, 16/11/05; col. 964.]
	This House has heard an excellent exposition and examination of the CSA's problems from my noble friend. I say, incidentally, that my voice is not as overtired as his, although we are both, for the same reason, under some strain.

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: Stress.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: Strain or stress, my Lords. The reason is that he is speaking tirelessly on behalf of Sir Menzies Campbell and I am doing my best for Chris Huhne in our little leadership election.
	I do not propose to add further to the examination of the problem. Instead, I wish to outline from these Benches what we regard as a practical and constructive 10-point plan of action. Of course, as we discussed after the Statement last week, there are no simple solutions, but we honestly believe that this is the right way ahead, as opposed to the Government's unending sorry saga of reviews and redesigns, which just put off the evil day of decision.
	We believe that the existing agency should be scrapped and its functions transferred to HM Revenue and Customs. Last Thursday, in questions on the Statement, I said to the Minister:
	"Independent observers with an open mind would point out that the Inland Revenue must be the government department best placed to know individuals' personal financial circumstances and to enforce collection of debts".—[Official Report, 9/2/06; col. 829.]
	He did not answer at that point. Does he agree with that statement, at least in principle? Of course there will need to be a transitional period, during which automatic access to information on families or children and income details for all taxpayers held by the Revenue must be available for the existing CSA. The Government must make clear that the main aim for the CSA is to get extra financial help for children.
	The CSA must retain a simple tax-like formula for assessing maintenance. Simplicity is vital if maintenance calculations are to be made quickly and reliably. The ability to make orders in line with the child support formula should be returned to the courts, where they are already making other orders: for example, in relation to the family home, pension, savings or spousal maintenance. That could reduce the need for the CSA to get involved in complex cases that are already being looked at in that way.
	Information-gathering powers for the new organisation are to be improved so that access to information held by other arms of government and other organisations such as banks and credit agencies can be made easier. There should be a new statutory requirement on non-resident parents to report a change of address or job, and deductions made directly from earnings should automatically transfer to new employers, as recommended by the Select Committee.
	Payments and maintenance at the determined rate should start within 28 days. For those who miss the maintenance deadlines, or who miss more than one payment, maintenance should be deducted at source from income in the same way as for PAYE. Deduction from earnings at source is likely to be far more widely used under this regime. HM Revenue and Customs should also consider whether new powers are needed to secure maintenance that is owed, including interception of income tax refunds and collection of money held in savings accounts. They will need to co-operate closely with Jobcentre Plus to ensure that parents with care on income support receive the £10 maintenance premium, and to liaise about child maintenance deductions.
	Staff numbers must not be cut while the agency is in such a state of crisis. An effective enforcement arm should be established that begins action by first discussing debts with both parents and negotiating an affordable payment arrangement before appropriate enforcement action is taken. That new organisation will need a much stronger culture of enforcement.
	There should be a new child support arbitrator, able to bring together different generations of application and impose a solution that reflects the particular circumstances of the family, and so bring complex and long-running cases to a close. The arbitrator would not, however, be allowed to cut across the standard formula, introducing excessive complexity into the system. Compensation should be paid by the CSA when its actions have been negligent, and this should be proportionate to the losses incurred. The final part of this plan is that new legislation—or, as we prefer, its successor—must be carefully scrutinised both by Parliament and by an expert child support adviser in Committee.
	"The buck stops here"—that used to be the sign on the desk of that great and much under-rated American president, Harry Truman. How much better former American presidents now look in comparison with the present day. The CSA buck stops on the desk of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. It is high time he stopped passing it to reviewers and redesigners. He is an experienced and wise Minister, for whom I have a great deal of respect. If I am being unfair to him, and he has actually taken the tough but necessary decisions but they are being blocked by his superiors or the Treasury, we on these Benches would be happy to help him in any way we can.

Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, when I looked at the minutes of proceedings yesterday, I was more than a little surprised to find the Unstarred Question of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, still on the Order Paper, given that the Government's intentions on the future of the Child Support Agency were made quite clear in a Statement on Thursday, repeated by the Minister here, and, at one moment, contributed to by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, himself. I could suppose only that the Government's intentions were not as crystal clear as he would like.
	I pass on the good wishes of the Conservative Benches to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. I hope that she is soon back in good and robust health.
	I believe that we all, except regrettably some absent fathers, are agreed on two things: that it is right that children resulting from failed relationships should be supported financially by both parents, and that no one is happy with how the Child Support Agency has performed the task of getting money from absent parents to the parent with care.
	One other thing that we can all agree on—as we did in 1991, although I am not so sure now, having heard the 10-point plan—is that the previous system relying on the courts was inequitable since too often a case in one part of the country had a totally different outcome from that of a similar case in another part of the country, and the process was slow. We now know that speed has not increased under either the Child Support Agency as originally formulated or the Labour Government's reforms to date. Indeed, it has got worse. The speed of assessment is now so abysmal, with a backlog as of last month of 330,000 cases, that only root-and-branch reform will do.
	One reason for this is the formula used for the assessment. Although it is intended to be fair it takes into account so many variables—around 100, I believe—that it is unbelievably complicated. The Minister shakes his head but perhaps he can explain how many variables there are. The Government's solution to this was a computer programme. Computers are formidable machines and should be able to apply this formula to each case relatively quickly—"should" being the operative word. Unfortunately, the programme should have been introduced in 2001, but was delayed because of what might best be described as teething problems. When there were, I am told, as many as 1,000 alterations between tendering and commissioning, "teething problems" is almost too kind an expression. How that was allowed to happen I do not know, but it should not be. Nor do I know how the 1,000 alterations arose. The Minister should tell us whether a whole succession of his civil servants wanted to tinker with the formula "or what?", as they say in Bolton.
	Whatever the reason, there can be no doubt that in trying to be all things to all men, the formula is overambitious. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asks what the Government intend to do about it. Clearly, three things could be done: first, scrap it and start again; secondly, have a support system that operates on a flat rate per child, whatever the financial means of the absent parent; and, thirdly, have a graduated scale, depending on the salary of the absent parent. It would not surprise me to be told that there just might be a fourth option that nobody has yet thought about, and that this is one of the things that Sir David Henshaw, in his root-and-branch review of the CSA, will no doubt consider.
	It is noteworthy that even after the internal review of Stephen Geraghty, the chief executive, a new review is now needed. It is even more noteworthy that the Government do not have a very good track record of reviewing the work and the operation of the CSA. Their 1998 review did not start to produce results until 2003 and, as I have shown, not exactly spectacular results at that. If history is to be repeated, it would mean that some children who are 12 years old today will never get any financial support from their absent parent.
	Various other aspects of the problem, over and above the assessment process, need to be addressed. A notice has to be served on the absent parent, who may well have moved house and may well be in a second or further relationship, with children whom they are supporting, or not as the case may be. If the latter is the case, presumably more than one assessment will be necessary.
	Having traced the absent parent, it is then necessary to extract the money and pass it on to the parent with care. Can he afford it? Certainly—that is if the assessment was made properly in the first place. Will he afford it? Well, that is the heart of the problem. He may well hide his income as far as possible or simply not pay. Here, to give them credit, the Government have come up with some ideas which, as I understand it, they will introduce well before Sir David reports. I refer to attachment of earnings orders, such as those used when people get into default with their utility providers. They also need to contract out "some" of the agency's debt recovery; why "some"?
	The current improvement plan also involves using Revenue and Customs to help to trace absent parents. Credit reference agencies and private sector tracing agencies are also in the Child Support Agency's sights, to be used where the internal teams are unsuccessful. How many of those have been used up to now? What about the electoral roll—how useful is it, if it is used at all?
	The accuracy of assessments is all-important. I have no doubt that many absent parents appeal. Will the Minister tell us something that my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale has been trying to get him to divulge for months—how many appeals are in progress, and what percentage of the case load does that represent? Communication with clients is of course a fundamental part of any business. So often the letters that the Child Support Agency sends out are written in such a complicated way as to be almost unintelligible. That can and should be improved by staff training, although I doubt that any amount of training would improve the accuracy of assessments.
	The discrete operations of the Child Support Agency, namely assessment, case management, collection and enforcement, could all be carried out by separate organisations, either inside or outside the agency. According to the Guardian, the Secretary of State has told the unions that he has no intention of breaking up the Child Support Agency. I am told that the department has denied that. Whatever the truth of the matter—and perhaps the Minister could tell us—it does not bode well for industrial relations. Not only that, it must, to an extent at least, spike Sir David's guns even before he gets started. It also makes for confusion even now, as last week's Statement said quite clearly that Sir David was instructed to redesign the agency.
	In his redesign, I hope that he uses the imaginative thinking called for by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and that he looks at better ways of sustaining relationships with separated parents. All the research shows that where parents are encouraged to maintain contact with their children, payment of maintenance is not an issue. We had long debates on that during the passage of the Children and Adoption Bill. Will the Government discuss with the Secretary of State for Education and Skills the possibility that Sir David Henshaw's remit includes the impact of decisions on access, currently managed by CAFCASS, on child support issues?
	The department intends to give a £10 disregard to parents with care who are on social security benefits. However, that applies only to those receiving payment under the new system. By definition, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester have said, that is monstrously unfair to those parents who receive money under the old system. Why is that to happen? While I agree with the disregard, which will provide a little extra help to parents with care, surely to goodness it should apply to all parents with care. As the right reverend Prelate said, £10 is a lot to some parents.
	This short debate could help to clear the air about some of the Government's intentions with regard to the Child Support Agency. However, we will have to await the Government's response to Sir David Henshaw's review to know exactly what they intend to do about all those thousands of children who are not currently funded by their absent parent. No review or redesign of the agency can get away from the basic problem: how can the state help families to stay together?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for giving us a further opportunity to debate matters to do with the Child Support Agency soon after the Statement that I repeated in the House on Thursday. It has been an interesting debate, which has raised a lot of interesting questions that will fall to Sir David to ponder as he redesigns the child support system in this country.
	The debate also identified two things. Although noble Lords have enjoyed having a pot at the Government on some of the issues around child support, I sense behind that a real desire to seek some political consensus on the way forward.
	Indeed, going back to 1993, there was all-party support when the previous government produced the proposals, the White Paper, and then the legislation. There were some misgivings, but in the end the legislation undoubtedly enjoyed all-party support—and all-party disappointment when the 1993 scheme ran into so many difficulties from the start. In a sense, there is still general support for an efficient child support system that puts children at its heart and seeks to change the culture of so many people in this country who seem to think that it is perfectly acceptable to evade their responsibilities to their children. I am hopeful that, following Sir David's work, when we come to Parliament to announce the outcome of our deliberations, together we will find a way forward. I certainly take the point that if legislation is required, which it will be, we will enjoy holding debates about that.
	It has also become clear that while there is focus on the operational issues and the problems faced by the agency, you cannot divorce those from the wider problems; the complexity of so many cases and those with links from one family to many other families in terms of the parent with care and the non-resident parent. Furthermore, staff at the CSA are often caught in the middle of aggressive, warring parents and have to take the brunt of aggressive communication. That is very difficult. There is a culture among too many people that it is okay to evade responsibility. While I would never seek to run away from the operational difficulties that must be faced, we need to recognise the context in which those have occurred.
	I also thank noble Lords for their tributes to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for her diligent scrutiny of the Child Support Agency over eight years and I am sure that we all wish her to be back in your Lordships' House.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, referred to his inquiry as chair of the DWP Select Committee which asked whether the agency and the child support system were fit for purpose. The Government's conclusion is that they are not fit for purpose. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, feels that we have taken a mite too long in coming to that conclusion, but I would defend the process that we undertook since that Select Committee inquiry.
	It was right to appoint a chief executive in the shape of Stephen Geraghty, who had extensive private sector experience and to allow him to bring forward proposals in relation to the operational review of the agency. We took the view that the cost of his original proposals, which would have been £300 million and would have embraced conversion and migration—I shall return to that in more detail—could not be justified. We thought that it was too risky and the review identified that the system itself, not just the agency, was not fit for purpose. That is why we have asked Sir David to undertake the redesign. He does have a blank sheet of paper and it is very much up to him to come forward with his own proposals. He has not been given any steer by Ministers as to the route down which we might seek him to go. This is a genuine effort to achieve a redesign that will meet many of the points that noble Lords have raised.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and the right reverend Prelate in particular have referred to the many cases that operate under the old system. That is absolutely right. Out of a caseload of some 1.5 million, over 900,000 are still being operated under those rules.
	When the new scheme was debated in 2003, the Government said that we would not be able to consider transferring the bulk of old scheme cases on to it until the organisational and operational arrangements were ready. Frankly, we are not ready, as was conclusively shown by Mr Geraghty's review. So we will continue to keep the decision under review.
	In general, the introduction of the new method of calculation does not mean that the old method produced amounts that were wrong. The reality is that the old scheme was very complex, and I think that the noble Baroness underestimated the number of calculations that needed to be made under it. There is no doubt that the new scheme is simpler to operate and that it is a more efficient way of assessing maintenance. Indeed, I would say that one success that has emerged from the changes is that the new assessment process is easy to understand. If you have a straightforward case in terms of income, it is easy to work out from the CSA's website what you should pay to your children. Members of Parliament have many constituents asking for conversion as quickly as possible. Many non-resident parents go to their MPs because they think they will have to pay less under the new system, but in many cases they will pay more. We calculate that around 60 per cent of all converted cases will pay more, although only around 40 per cent of employed non-resident parents will pay more. It also needs to be remembered that if the non-resident parent is paying less, that means that less money is going to support the children. Arguments about fairness in CSA assessments do not always consider that side of the story, but of course I understand the issue of fairness in relation to benefit recipients.
	I have investigated this matter and have talked to officials about it, but the advice that I and the Secretary of State have consistently received is that, if we were to extend the child maintenance premium to all relevant old scheme cases, it could be carried out only via a very costly clerical exercise because the IT is simply not configured to pay the child maintenance premium on the old system cases. We would be faced with using a substantial number of staff in that regard. The knock-on impact would be that the work that we want to do generally to improve the system could not take place. I shall continue to look at this matter because I understand the issues that have been raised, but I cannot promise that I will come forward with a solution that will provide optimism to noble Lords. However, the matter continues to be reviewed and we will also look to Sir David for advice.
	In relation to IT systems—a matter raised by the noble Baroness—I have already explained that the formula is much easier to operate and much more straightforward. The IT issues have been very well documented. I simply say to the noble Baroness that there has been a reassignment of the contract with EDS. The sum of £65 million has been taken off the price that was originally expected over the term of the contract, and we have also been able to hold back a certain amount of money in lieu of good performance.
	I shall not pretend that we have reached the point where all the defects have been put right—that will be a steady process. I do not believe that ultimately the system will ever achieve what it set out to do, but I think that we can reach a point where things are stable, where it can do most of the basic tasks and where staff feel happier about its performance.
	I visited the CSA in Hastings today to meet the staff and I talked to them about the IT system about which there are always mixed views. We all rightly pay tribute to the CSA staff. It is remarkable how many staff have been there since the mid-1990s; they have stuck with it and are committed to the children. It is great to be able to pay tribute to those staff. Initially, when you ask the staff about the IT system, they say it is hopeless, but when you question them further, they acknowledge that they are getting used to it, they have got used to it, and the system is being improved. We can expect to see further improvements over the next year or two. I fully accept that if one were to compare the system as it is with what it was hoped it would be there is clearly a big gap.
	I do not believe I can say much more about Sir David's redesign. Having met him and spoken to him yesterday, I am confident that we have appointed a really good person for the job. Not only will he pick up many of the policy issues raised by noble Lords, but he will also ensure that whatever design we bring forward is practical for operational implementation. Surely, we have learnt over the past 15 or 16 years that one can have as great and as sensitive a policy as one wants, but if it cannot be operated in an effective and an administrative way it will disappoint.
	On families and mediation, I agree with all that has been said. Seventy per cent of the agency's clients are benefit cases; one in five of the parents involved has never lived with the other parent; and half of the non-resident parents never see their children. We really need to get down to the issue of family breakdown and relationships. I am very interested in the comments that noble Lords have made about mediation. The Australian experience will be very interesting to watch. I can assure noble Lords that the scope of Sir David's redesign concerns the total, holistic approach and is not simply confined to the operational issues of the Child Support Agency. By its very nature, that will involve other government departments. Of course, other government departments have a very positive role to play in dealing with these matters.
	I say to the right reverend Prelate that money and IT are important. We have to maintain the CSA as it is at the moment because I can assure him that, if we do not, many more non-resident parents will run away from their responsibilities. That is the lesson and the experience of the CSA staff. At the same time, we want to change the culture and do everything that we can to encourage parents to do the right thing.
	I shall not comment extensively on the 10-point plan of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott. I believe my right honourable friend the Secretary of State made it clear that we do not believe that simply transferring the CSA to HMRC is a reasonable or practical option, but I believe that there is scope for exploring with HMRC the opportunities for closer working together. We have already set up a project to examine how we might use HMRC tax information for the calculation of maintenance.
	I am reminded that I should sit down now. I shall finish by mentioning passing the buck. I have no intention of passing the buck. I do not believe that deciding that the current system fundamentally is not fit for the purpose is passing the buck. That is a clear decision by the Government. The invitation to Sir David to redesign is not passing the buck. I can assure noble Lords that when we have Sir David's redesign and we make the key decisions we will not be buck passing; we will be bringing to the House and to the other place very strong proposals for the effective system of child support that we all want to see.

Identity Cards Bill

Returned from the Commons with certain amendments disagreed to but with amendments proposed in lieu thereof, with certain other amendments disagreed to with reasons for such disagreement, and with the remaining amendments agreed to; it was ordered that the amendments and reasons be printed.
	House adjourned at seven o'clock.